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Staydoc
Files stay on this device

Redact a PDF

Black out text and images in a PDF and remove them from the file for good.

Preparing your workspace

Loading the controls for this tool. Your files stay on this device.

Network activity: Starting…

How it works

  1. 1

    Choose a PDF. Its pages appear on this device.

  2. 2

    Draw boxes over what must go, or find words and mark every match.

  3. 3

    Redact and save. What was under the boxes is removed from the file, not just covered.

Why it's private

  • Processed in your browser

    The tool runs on your device. There is no upload step and no server that receives your files.

  • Works offline

    Wait for Offline ready before disconnecting. OCR and Office conversion also need their engines saved on this device.

  • No ads or trackers

    Tool pages load no ads, no analytics scripts and no third-party code.

Questions

Is the text really gone, or just covered?

Gone. The letters under each box are removed from the page itself, so copying, searching or moving the box finds nothing. Covered parts of images are replaced, and the black box is drawn on top only to show where something was.

Can I remove a word everywhere it appears?

Yes. Type it under Find, then mark all matches. Check each page afterwards: words in a picture cannot be found this way, and words in a scan only after its pages are read with OCR.

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Yes. A scan is a picture of the page, so Find cannot read its words at first; choose to read the scanned pages and they are read with OCR on this device, in English or Hindi, so Find works there too. Or draw boxes by hand. Either way, the pixels under each box are replaced in the picture itself.

Why did a page turn into an image?

Some content cannot be edited piece by piece here, for example pictures stored as JPEG 2000 or fax images. Rather than leave anything behind, the whole page is redrawn as an image with the boxes burned in. It looks the same, but its text can no longer be selected.

Does it work with password-protected PDFs?

Yes. Enter the file's password when asked; it is used on this device only. The new file is not password-protected.

Are my files uploaded anywhere?

No. Your browser does the work on this device, and the tool keeps working offline once the page has loaded. Nothing is sent to a server.