Meet the PDF Permanent Redaction Tool
Draw boxes over the text or regions you want gone, and this tool rebuilds your PDF as flattened page images with those areas blacked out.
- Free to use
- No signup
- Nothing to install
- Runs in your browser
Illustration. Open the tool for the real thing.
What is the PDF Permanent Redaction Tool?
A common, dangerous mistake is 'redacting' a PDF by drawing a black rectangle over sensitive text with a PDF editor — the original text is often still there underneath, extractable by copy-pasting, selecting, or opening the file in a different viewer. This tool avoids that trap entirely by taking a fundamentally different, genuinely permanent approach: it renders each page to a real raster image with pdf.js, lets you draw black redaction boxes over that image, and then rebuilds the entire PDF from those flattened images using pdf-lib.
Because the output PDF's pages are images, not the original vector/text content, there is no hidden text layer left underneath your redaction boxes to extract — the redacted information is genuinely gone from the file, not just visually covered, which is the real, defensible meaning of 'permanent redaction'.
3 steps to your result
Open the tool and follow along. Nothing to install.
What you get
Rebuilds pages as flattened images, so there's no hidden text layer left to extract from underneath a black box.
Click and drag directly on each page's real rendered content to mark exactly what to black out.
Navigate through every page of the document and add redaction boxes wherever needed.
See exactly how each redacted page will look before finalizing and downloading.
AZRS tools are free to open and use.
It opens in your browser, so there is nothing to download.
Used for
Pick one to see how it fits.
Anyone sharing a document that contains sensitive personal or financial information
Remove that information for real, not just visually, before sending the file onward.
Try it freeLegal, HR and compliance staff preparing documents for disclosure
Produce a genuinely redacted document rather than risking a black-box-over-text mistake.
Try it freeAnyone posting a document publicly that has some private details
Permanently strip out only the sensitive parts while keeping the rest of the document readable.
Try it freeHow it compares
A plain look at this tool next to the usual alternative.
| This utility | Desktop software | |
|---|---|---|
| Install | Nothing to install | Usually an app or program to install |
| Account | No signup | Depends on the product |
| Cost | Free to use | Free or paid, depends on the product |
| Where it runs | In your browser tab | On your computer |
Questions people ask
Why is this more 'permanent' than drawing a black box in a normal PDF editor?
Because a black box drawn on top of a PDF's existing vector/text content typically leaves that original text intact underneath and extractable (by copy-paste, text search, or opening the raw file structure). This tool instead rebuilds each page as a flattened raster image with the redaction already baked in, so there's no hidden text layer left to extract — the content is genuinely gone from the file.
Will my document still have selectable text after redaction?
No — because the whole page becomes an image to guarantee real removal, none of that page's text remains selectable or searchable afterward. This is the real, necessary tradeoff for genuine permanent redaction.
Can I redact just part of a page and keep the rest editable?
The redacted page as a whole becomes a flattened image; if you need other pages to remain fully editable text, you can process only the specific pages that contain sensitive content.
Does this work on scanned PDFs too?
Yes — since it works by rendering each page to an image regardless of whether the original content was text or already a scan, it works the same way either way.
Is the PDF uploaded to a server?
No, both the rendering (pdf.js) and the rebuilding (pdf-lib) happen entirely in your browser; the file never leaves your device.
More free tools
Related to the PDF Permanent Redaction Tool.
Try the PDF Permanent Redaction Tool now
Permanently remove selected text and regions from a PDF by rebuilding it as a flattened. Free to use.
Try it free