Adobe® Acrobat® X White Paper
Using redaction in Adobe® Acrobat® X
Best practices for removing sensitive text and images from documents
Redaction is the permanent deletion of visible text and images from documents. In the past, a black marker
was used to hide sensitive information. These days, it doesn’t make sense to print out a document just to
redact it. The process is slow, expensive, and inefficient. Instead, law firms, government agencies, and
organizations around the world rely on Adobe Acrobat Pro software to safely and permanently remove content
from the document data stream.
Acrobat redaction tools were introduced in version 8, and redaction capabilities have continued to improve
with each release. In Acrobat X Pro, several new redaction features were introduced:
• Redactionacrosspages—Repeataredactionthroughadocument.Usefulforredactingheadersandfooters
from documents.
• Partialpaernredaction—Markpartofapaernforredaction.Forexample,markpartofanationalIDor
credit card number. Useful for identifying individuals without revealing personal information.
• Redactionmarkappearance—Settheappearanceofredactionmarks.Forexample,markitemswitha
transparent red overlay.
• OverlaytextinCommentslist—ViewoverlaytextintheCommentlistforquickreview.
This paper provides tips for getting started and best practices for using the redaction tools in Acrobat X.
Topicscovered include:
• Seingredactionpreferences
• Markingtextandgraphicsforredaction
• Seingcommonredactionproperties
• Addingoverlaytextandexemptioncodestoaredaction
• Creatingareportofredactions
• Applyingredactionstopermanentlyremoveinformation
• UsingActionstoautomatetheredactionworkow
Preparing for redaction
Redactions must be carefully applied and managed. Here are a few tips to get ready.
• Copythedocumentstoberedactedtoanewfolderonyourharddrive.
• Ifthedocumentisascannedimage,converttheimagetosearchabletextusingopticalcharacterrecognition
(OCR).
• Reviewthedocumentstoidentifythetypeofinformationthatneedstoberedacted.Forexample,personally
identiableinformation(PII),suchasdriver’slicense,nationalidentication,orcreditcardnumbersthatcan
be used to identify, contact, or locate a person; names of companies or people that need to remain conden-
tial; or trade secrets such as formulas or computer code.
Table of contents
1: Preparing for
redaction
2: Automatically
copying redacted text
to a sticky note
3: Redacting text
andgraphics
8: Reviewing redactions
10: Applying redactions
12: Automating
Redaction Workows
Using Actions
13: Tips and tricks for
advanced users
16: Best practices
summary