5 Ways to Redact a PDF with or Without Adobe Acrobat (Free Support)

PDF is a perfect way to store and present information as closely as we expect, but what can we do if it is necessary to permanently remove visible text or images in your PDF? In fact, as long as we have a PDF redact tool, we can redact a PDF without difficulty.

The leakage of privacy can cause a lot of trouble for any business and individual, so data protection is a vital issue for everyone currently. For this guide, we focus on 5 easy ways to redact PDF with or without Adobe Acrobat, whether you are a Mac user or Windows user.

 Cisdem PDFMaster

Best Redact Tool for Windows & Mac 2023

• Remove your sensitive information from PDF on Windows and Mac easily
• Black out or white out multiple pages at the same time
• Always keep your data and information safe
• Protect PDF with password, digital signature, watermark...
• Edit and change text in PDF as edit in a Word
• Batch convert scanned images or files to editable files

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How to Redact a PDF Without Adobe Pro?

To protect us from any prospective troubles on sharing a PDF, we need to remove sensitive or highly confidential information from PDF on Mac or Windows. Based on this, Adobe products are almost featured with a redaction tool. But, can we redact a PDF without Adobe Pro? The answer is Yes.

Did not Download the Adobe Pro? Try the Best PDF Redact Tool

If Adobe Acrobat is just not what you want, the best PDF redact tool in Cisdem PDFMaster would be another great assistant on Mac and Windows. You don’t have to worry at all about whether your text and images in PDF are really covered up or not. With PDFMaster, the redaction is burned into the PDF so that no one can retrieve the content. 

Besides, you can utilize this software to create PDF, edit PDF, add comments to PDF, protect and unlock PDF, build forms, OCR scanned documents, add digital signatures, even compress PDFs. It's a great PDF converter, a convenient PDF editor, a professional measuring tool, even a master of all your PDF files.

Here, I have a notice written before the solutions. Redaction means permanently removing certain information from your file, so you can’t retrieve the text and undo the redaction directly from regular PDF tool. Making a copy of the original PDF file before redaction is the safest way.

How to Redact a PDF without Adobe Pro?

1. Download and launch Cisdem PDFMaster on your Windows.
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2. Open Files from your computer for redaction.
3. Click on the Protect tab and choose the Mark for Redaction tool. 
4. Drag and drop your mouse to highlight the name, telephone, address or other sensitive information, then click the “√” icon under the area you draw.
5. A box will pop up reminding you that the step will permanently remove all items selected for redaction and it cannot be undone.
6. Click Apply to redact information in PDF.

Looking for Free Methods? 2 Free Ways to Redact Text in PDF

With more users requiring blacking out text in PDF, the technology is getting better and offered as free by some programs. For this, we offer 2 free PDF redact tool for Mac and Windows users.

#1 Redact PDF on Mac with Preview

You can use Preview — a handy free PDF redaction tool to redact PDF on Mac for free. Note that this redaction tool was introduced in macOS 11 “Big Sur”. If you can’t update your version, then we can also use the marker tool to help you redact the text in PDF on Mac. Read on!

For macOS 11 and newer:

How to Redact PDF in Preview with the Redaction Tool?

1. Open your PDF that needs to be redacted with Preview in macOS 11 or newer.
2. Go to Tool > Redact. Or open the Show Markup Toolbar and click the Redact icon.
3. A warning will present and click “OK”.
4. Then drag your cursor to redact the text with black marks.
5. You can change the redaction while editing this PDF. But as long as you save it, the text cannot be recovered.

For versions before macOS 11：

How to Redact PDF in Preview with the Markup Tool?

1. Click the Show Markup Toolbar icon.
2. Choose the Border Color as none or black, or any other colors to black out the text as needed. 
3. Click “Export as PDF” to save the redacted PDF on Mac. Don’t just “Save” after adding these redaction actions, otherwise, these redaction actions will be withdrawn by others with Preview and no information will be hidden or removed. 

#2 Redact PDF Online Free

Here is another entry-level free tool for users who don’t have Preview: redact PDF online for free. 

AvePDF is a web-based application that provides 50+ tools to process any document online. Other than redacting PDF, this online PDF solution offers high-level features such as capturing document from scanner, annotate a PDF, reduce PDF file size, hyper-compression, e-signature, add links to page, and advanced OCR. 

Compared to the maximum upload size set by other online programs, 256MB is sufficient for most uses. Moreover, with the help of AvePDF’s automatic detection, all documents are automatically deleted from this web after 30 minutes. 

How to Redact a PDF Online Free?

1. Go to AvePDF > Protect > Redact PDF, and drop a PDF to the interface. (Max file size is 256 MB).
2. Click Add redaction marks and black out any text in PDF. Your actions are recorded on the left, and you can even remove the redaction.
3. Click Save on the top to save it on your computer or cloud storage service.

How to Redact a PDF in Word with 4 Steps?

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word processors that supports turning PDF into editable. Since you can edit the text on the PDF, it is very easy to black out and cover up some private information. The black box created by Preview can be modified or deleted at will, but Word can edit text directly, and the text you want to hide can be covered directly.

Steps to Redact a PDF in Word:

1. Open a PDF with Microsoft Word, click OK to start.
2. Select the text that you need to black out.
3. In the Home tab, choose the highlight tool. Then you can cover the text in black.
4. Finally, go to File > Save to export the Word as a PDF document.

If You Have Already Installed Adobe Acrobat, Look Here!

If you are using Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat free trial, you won’t be able to use the redaction feature. Maybe you will use the markup feature in the Comment bar to black out text in PDF. However, just covering text up with a colored box is not enough to guarantee the safety of data and information, and permanent removal is still necessary with the help of professional tools.

Assuming you are a subscribed Adobe user, the redaction tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC will get your problem solved. Follow the steps below and try in your Acrobat Pro.

How to Redact PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC?

1. Run Adobe Acrobat on your computer and import a PDF file you want to redact.
2. Go to Tools > Redact.
3. Choose Mark for Redaction > Text & Images. Choose the part you want to redact and select. 
4. Once you have selected the part to redact, go to Properties and choose the Redacted Area Fill Color as None (or black to hide the content). 
5. Then “Apply”, the part you selected will be removed or hidden, you successfully redact PDF on Mac or Windows.

Why Can't I Redact in PDF?

There are a part of users point out that they can’t redact text in PDF and don’t know why. If you are in a situation that the redaction tool button turn gray and don’t allow you to click on it. Go to File > Properties > Security, you can see if the file has some permissions set before. There is a high probability that the file has been set with permission to prohibit comments, so that the text cannot be redacted. In this case, find the permission creator to unlock the restriction. If the file is restricted to editing text only, redaction will generally not be affected. In addition, both scanned files and interactive files can successfully applying redaction.

Now, it’s over to you…

How will you redact a PDF? Whether you need to redact PDF with or without Adobe Acrobat, it seems that the above mentioned 5 ways are all feasible and easy ways on Mac and Windows. If you want an unlimited and affordable desktop program, Cisdem PDFMaster is your best PDF assistant.