Redaction is the permanent removal of text or images from a document. Adobe Acrobat Professional streamlines much of the process and makes it possible to customize the look of the redactions, across multiple files if necessary. Files, however, must contain searchable text to use the search and redact function. Sensitive materials might need redaction.
Instructions
Customizing Redaction Marks
1 Go to the Advanced Menu > Redaction > Redaction Properties. Acrobat defaults to solid black.
2 Click the “Use Overlay Text” box to activate the customization properties.
3 Select the Fill Color, Text Color, Custom Text and Redaction Code as needed.
4 Click “OK” to close the dialog box.
Marking Text and Images for Redaction
5 Highlight a block of text or an image for redaction.
6 Go to Advanced Menu > Redaction > Mark For Redaction.
7 Read the dialog box that explains how the redaction process works and then click “Don’t show again,” if you don’t want to read it again. Otherwise, it will come up for every block of text marked for redaction.
Redacting Specific Terms
8 Right or “ctrl click” in top right of the document window to bring up the search box.
9 Click “Search and Redact” and read the dialog box.
10 Set up your search parameters with your search term, current or all PDF documents (on the entire computer or in a specific folder). Choose whole word and case sensitive searches. To begin the process click “Search and Redact.” Adobe will return a list of lines it has marked for redaction based on the search criteria.
11 Select the appropriate lines to redact or click the “check all” and then click “Mark Checked Results for Redaction.”
12 Check the documents for images or other non-searchable text that might need to be redacted manually after running the automated redaction.
Applying Redactions
13 Go to Advanced Menu > Redaction > Apply Redaction once all the text has been marked for redaction.
14 Click “OK” when a new dialog box opens with the following warning: “You are about to permanently redact all content that has been marked for redaction. Once the document is saved, this operation cannot be undone.”
15 Click “Yes” or “No” when Adobe asks if you want to examine the file for additional document information.
16 Re-save your redacted document with a new name