VUISO REDACT PDF - how to use ============================= Black out what nobody else should read in a PDF: names, ID numbers, account numbers, addresses, signatures. What is under a box is removed from the file, not only covered. Everything happens inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works with the network switched off. This tool works on ONE FILE at a time. To cut off whole margins use Vuiso Crop PDF; to drop whole pages use Vuiso Split PDF. OPENING IT Double-click "Vuiso Redact PDF.html". It opens in your browser like a normal page. There is nothing to install. Chrome or Edge is recommended; Firefox and Safari work too. THE SHORT VERSION 1. Open PDF (or drag the file onto the page area) 2. Drag a box over what has to go, or use Find and mark 3. Save PDF WHY THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM DRAWING A BLACK BOX Most ways of "blacking out" a PDF draw a black rectangle ON TOP of the text. The text is still underneath. Anybody can select it, copy it, or read it with a text extractor, and there have been real leaks exactly like that. This tool does not draw on the page. When you save, every page that has a box is turned into a picture of itself, the boxes are painted into that picture, and the picture replaces the page. The old text, images and form fields of that page are then deleted from the file. What was under a box is not hidden in the saved copy. It is not in it. BOXES The page you are working on is shown large in the middle. The strip on the right shows every page with its boxes, so a box on a page you are not looking at is visible too. Click a page there to work on it. Drag on the page draw a new box Click a box select it Drag a box move it Drag a handle resize the selected box Delete or Backspace remove the selected box Arrow keys nudge the selected box 1 pt (Shift: 10 pt) Escape select nothing On screen the boxes are see-through, so you can check what each one covers. Tick "Show the boxes solid, as they will be saved" to see the result. Black or White sets the colour every box is saved in. White suits a form you want to fill in again by hand. Copy to all pages puts the selected box in the same place on every page, for a name in a header or a number in a footer Clear this page removes the boxes on the page in front of you Clear all pages removes every box, after asking FIND AND MARK Finds text in the PDF and puts a box over every match, on every page. Words or numbers I type what you type. Upper and lower case count the same unless you tick the box. Spaces are flexible, and between two digits a space, dot or dash is allowed, so 3201123456789012 also finds 3201 1234 5678 9012. Long numbers: ID, account, card 8 digits or more, with or without spaces and dashes. Dates are left alone. Email addresses anything shaped like name@example.com Phone numbers 9 to 15 digits, such as 0812-3456-7890 or +62 812 3456 7890 Every match is listed under the button. Click one to go to its page with its box selected. A match whose box you deleted is struck through. Search a second time and nothing is doubled: a match that already has a box keeps the one it has. Three limits worth knowing: - A scan or a photo has no text in it, only a picture of text, so there is nothing to search. The tool tells you so. Draw the boxes by hand. - The PDF records where a piece of text starts, not where each letter is. Where a match begins and ends inside a line is estimated, and the box is padded for that reason. Look at each box before saving. - Text typed into form fields and comments is not searched. Draw a box over a filled-in field by hand. WHEN SAVING Sharpness of the rebuilt pages 150, 200 or 300 dpi. 200 is sharp enough to read and print. 300 makes small print crisper and the file larger. Rebuild every page, not only the pages with a box Off: pages without a box are left exactly as they were, with their text. On: every page becomes a picture. Use it when you are not sure the search found everything, or when the whole document must carry no text at all. Remove hidden data (on unless you untick it) Removes what a document carries besides its pages: the title, author, subject and keywords, the name of the program that made it, dates, XMP metadata, files attached inside the PDF, and scripts. Whatever you choose, the tool also removes: - the form fields whose boxes were on a rebuilt page, including their values - the structure tree of a tagged PDF, which can repeat a page's words - everything left behind by earlier saves of the file. A PDF edited several times often still holds its older versions inside, and they are dropped. Bookmarks are kept. If a bookmark title itself names somebody, edit or remove it in another program. The cost of a rebuilt page: its text can no longer be selected or searched, and its links and form fields are gone. Pages that are not rebuilt keep all of that. THE CHECK BEFORE THE DOWNLOAD After writing the new PDF, the tool opens it again and checks it: - a rebuilt page must carry no text at all - every search that marked something is run again on the whole copy - with Remove hidden data on, the document info and attachments must be gone If a search still finds something, usually because you deleted a box on a page that is not rebuilt, you are told how many times and on which pages, and asked whether to download anyway. If a rebuilt page still has text, or hidden data survived, nothing is downloaded. The copy is named " - redacted.pdf". Your original file is never modified. Keep it somewhere safe, or delete it, depending on why you redacted. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Ctrl+O Open PDF Page Up / Page Down Previous or next page (the arrow keys too, when no box is selected) Home / End First or last page Delete Remove the selected box Ctrl+Z Undo Ctrl+Y Redo Ctrl+E Save PDF NOTES - Page rotation is taken care of. A scan often carries a rotation of its own; boxes are drawn on the page as you see it, and the rebuilt page is saved the right way up. - Password-protected PDFs cannot be opened. Remove the protection in the program you use to open the document, save an unprotected copy, and use that. - Nothing is stored. No cookies, no database. Closing the tab loses the boxes, which is why there is a warning before you do. The only thing remembered is which of the two languages you chose. PRIVACY The file contains a Content-Security-Policy that forbids network connections entirely. That is enforced by the browser, not promised by us: open DevTools, watch the Network tab, and it stays empty. You can also disconnect from the internet and the tool still works. Verify the copy you hold matches the one published: Windows Get-FileHash "Vuiso Redact PDF.html" -Algorithm SHA256 macOS/Linux shasum -a 256 "Vuiso Redact PDF.html" Compare the result with the SHA-256 printed on the download page and in the .sha256.txt file next to this one. LICENCE See LICENSES.txt, which must stay alongside the tool.