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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:
• Redaction across pages—Repeat a redaction through a document. Useful for redacting headers and footers
from documents.
• Partial pa瑴ern redaction—Mark part of a pa瑴ern for redaction. For example, mark part of a national ID or
credit card number. Useful for identifying individuals without revealing personal information.
• Redaction mark appearance—Set the appearance of redaction marks. For example, mark items with a
transparent red overlay.
• Overlay text in Comments list—View overlay text in the Comment list for quick review.
This paper provides tips for getting started and best practices for using the redaction tools in Acrobat X.
Topicscovered include:
• Se瑴ing redaction preferences
• Marking text and graphics for redaction
• Se瑴ing common redaction properties
• Adding overlay text and exemption codes to a redaction
• Creating a report of redactions
• Applying redactions to permanently remove information
• Using Actions to automate the redaction workflow
Preparing for redaction
Redactions must be carefully applied and managed. Here are a few tips to get ready.
• Copy the documents to be redacted to a new folder on your hard drive.
• If the document is a scanned image, convert the image to searchable text using optical character recognition
(OCR).
• Review the documents to identify the type of information that needs to be redacted. For example, personally
identifiable information (PII), such as driver’s license, national identification, or credit card numbers that can
be used to identify, contact, or locate a person; names of companies or people that need to remain confiden-
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 Workflows
Using Actions
13: Tips and tricks for
advanced users
16: Best practices
summary