MaskIt

User Guide — Mapsoft MaskIt Plugin for Adobe Acrobat — version 1.7.2

Overview

MaskIt is an Adobe Acrobat plug-in that hides a rectangular area of the pages of a PDF document, so that anything that would normally display or print there is no longer seen. Use it to tidy the edges of scanned pages, to hide out-of-date headers, footers or page numbers, or to hide everything except a chosen area. Unlike Acrobat’s Crop Pages command, MaskIt does not change the size of the page.

MaskIt can hide the content inside a rectangle, such as a logo, a stamp or an old page number, or outside it, for example to remove the headers and footers of a page while keeping everything else. A mask can be applied to one page, a range of pages or the whole document, and saved under a name to be used again, in MaskIt or in a batch with Mapsoft Acrobatch.

Note: MaskIt hides content; it does not delete it. Masked text can no longer be seen or printed, but it is still in the file and may be found by a search or copied with text tools. To remove sensitive content permanently, use a redaction tool such as Mapsoft Redactor or Acrobat’s own Redact tool.

Getting Started

There are two ways to open the MaskIt dialog:

From	What happens
The MaskIt tool	Click the Activate MaskIt button on Acrobat’s toolbar. The pointer changes to a cross-hair. Drag out a rectangle over the area you want to mask; when you release the mouse button the dialog opens with the Mask Area already filled in from your rectangle.
The menu	Choose Extensions › Mapsoft › MaskIt…. The dialog opens with an empty mask area: type in the co-ordinates, or choose a saved configuration.

The tool button is unavailable for documents whose security settings do not allow changes. To mask an area:

Open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat.
Click the Activate MaskIt button and drag a rectangle over the area you want to mask. The MaskIt dialog opens with the rectangle’s co-ordinates filled in.
Choose Inside to hide the content inside the rectangle, or Outside to hide everything else.
Adjust the Mask Area if needed.
Leave Allow for rotated pages ticked if some pages are shown upside-down or sideways.
Choose the Page Range and Page Spread.
Optionally type a name and click Save to keep the settings for later.
Click Mask, check the result, then save the PDF in Acrobat as normal.

To use a saved mask, choose Extensions › Mapsoft › MaskIt…, select the configuration from the drop-down and click Mask.

Mask Type

Option	Description
Inside (the default)	The content inside the rectangle is hidden.
Outside	The content outside the rectangle is hidden, leaving only the rectangle’s content visible.

The picture beside the options shows the effect of the selected type.

Mask Area

The Left, Top, Right and Bottom fields give the position of the rectangle on the page, in the selected units. When you use the MaskIt tool they are filled in from the rectangle you drew; you can change them before masking.

The co-ordinates are measured the way the PDF file itself records the page: across from its left edge and up from its bottom edge, before any rotation Acrobat applies to display it. On a page that is shown rotated, these are not the edges you see on screen, so on such pages it is easiest to draw the rectangle with the MaskIt tool rather than type it.

The Mask button is only available when Right is greater than Left and Top is greater than Bottom.

Units

Use the Units drop-down to choose the unit of the Mask Area fields: Inches, Centimetres, Points (1/72 inch) or Millimetres. Changing the unit converts the values already entered, so the rectangle stays where it is. MaskIt remembers the unit you last used.

Allow for Rotated Pages

Scanned documents often contain a few pages that are shown rotated: a sheet fed in upside-down, or a landscape sheet turned on its side. A page number in the bottom corner of an upright page is at the top of the stored page when that page is shown upside-down, so the same co-ordinates would mask the wrong place.

With Allow for rotated pages ticked (the default), MaskIt works out where your rectangle falls on every page whose rotation (0°, 90°, 180° or 270°) differs from that of the page the rectangle was measured on. The mask then covers the same part of each page as you see it on screen: the bottom-right page number on the upright pages and on the upside-down ones.

The page the rectangle is measured on is the page you drew it on, when you use the MaskIt tool, or the page on display when you opened MaskIt, when you type the co-ordinates in. Untick the option to apply the co-ordinates exactly as they are to every page, whatever its rotation.

Situation	What happens
Pages with the same rotation as the measured page	Masked exactly as the co-ordinates say, whether or not the option is ticked.
Pages rotated differently, option ticked	Masked in the same place as it appears on screen.
Pages rotated differently, option not ticked	Masked exactly as the co-ordinates say, which on screen is a different place.
A mask saved with a version of MaskIt earlier than 1.7	Masked exactly as the co-ordinates say on every page. Earlier versions did not record which page the mask was measured on.

MaskIt assumes that all the pages look the same size on screen, as the sheets of one scanned document do. On a rotated page of a different size the mask may not line up exactly; check such pages after masking.

Tip: To have a mask saved with an earlier version allow for rotated pages, create it again (draw it with the MaskIt tool, or open MaskIt from the menu and type its co-ordinates without first choosing the old configuration) and save it under the same name.

Page Range and Spread

Option	Description
All pages	The mask is applied to every page of the document.
Specified pages only	The mask is applied only to the pages listed in the text box (see Page Range Syntax). When the dialog opens, this is selected with the current page filled in.
Current button	Fills in the number of the page currently displayed in Acrobat and selects Specified pages only.

The Page Spread options restrict the mask to Odd Pages only or Even Pages only within the page range, which is useful for double-sided documents. The default, Odd and Even Pages, masks every page in the range.

Saved Configurations

A configuration is a named copy of all the settings in the dialog, including the mask area, the units and the page range. Saved configurations can be used again in MaskIt and in Mapsoft Acrobatch.

Control	Description
Configuration drop-down	Choose a saved configuration to load its settings, or type a new name. Names may contain letters, digits, spaces and most punctuation; avoid commas, which Acrobatch uses to separate names.
Save	Saves the current settings under the name shown. If a configuration with that name already exists you are asked before it is overwritten. You can save a configuration without masking anything.
Remove	Deletes the selected configuration.

Configurations are stored in the Windows registry for your user account and persist between Acrobat sessions. The dialog’s other buttons are Mask (mask the selected pages and close), Cancel (close without masking; a configuration you saved is kept) and Help… (open this guide).

Page Range Syntax

When Specified pages only is selected, enter a comma-separated list of page numbers or ranges:

Example	Meaning
`5`	Page 5 only
`6, 12, 15`	Pages 6, 12 and 15
`3-19`	Pages 3 to 19
`-23`	Pages 1 to 23
`3-`	Page 3 to the last page
`3, 8-10, 14, 18`	Pages 3, 8, 9, 10, 14 and 18

Spaces are ignored and ranges may overlap. Write each range lowest page first (5-10, not 10-5). Page numbers start at 1. Anything else, such as 3;5, is reported as not valid and nothing is masked.

Masking Many Documents

MaskIt masks the current document. To mask many documents in one operation, save a configuration and run it from Mapsoft Acrobatch, alone or together with other Mapsoft plug-ins; for example, mask the old page numbers with MaskIt, then add new ones with Mapsoft Impress. The configuration is applied exactly as it would be from the dialog, including Allow for rotated pages, and any problem (a configuration that no longer exists, a page range that is not valid) is written to the Acrobatch log.

Tips and Notes

Keep a copy: once you save a masked PDF, the mask cannot be removed. Until you save, File › Revert restores the document. Keep a backup of important files before masking them.
Hidden, not deleted: masked content remains in the file (see the note in the Overview).
Comments and form fields: MaskIt masks the page content. Comments, form fields and other annotations sit above it and are not masked; flatten them into the page first, for example with Mapsoft Flattener.
Masking twice: masks add up. Masking the same page again hides the new area as well as the old one.
Tryout mode: an unlicensed copy of MaskIt runs as a fully working 30-day tryout, with nothing added to your documents. When the tryout ends, MaskIt asks for a serial number; purchase a licence to keep using it.
Tooltips: hover over any control in the dialog for a short description of what it does.

COM Automation

The MaskIt automation component for the Mapsoft Workflow Server (MAPSMaskIt.dll, which must be registered before use) exposes a COM interface, IMaskItAuto, for masking documents from scripts and other programs:

Property / Method	Type	Description
`fLeft`, `fRight`, `fTop`, `fBottom`	double	The mask rectangle, in points, measured as the PDF records the page.
`nMaskType`	long	0 = inside, 1 = outside.
`bAllPages`	BOOL	TRUE = all pages, FALSE = the pages in `strRange`.
`strRange`	BSTR	Page range, e.g. `"1-3,5"`.
`nOddAndOrEvenPages`	long	0 = odd and even, 1 = odd only, 2 = even only.
`bAllowForRotations`	BOOL	Allow for rotated pages. Takes effect for a configuration loaded with `LoadConfig`; a rectangle set through the properties above is applied as given.
`bPermanentErase`	BOOL	Kept for compatibility; has no effect.
`LoadConfig(configName)`	method	Loads a saved configuration into the properties.
`Mask(PDFHandle)`	method	Masks the given document with the current settings.

MaskIt also exports the standard Mapsoft batch interface, so it can be driven by Mapsoft Acrobatch and other Mapsoft plug-ins in multi-step batch workflows.

System Requirements

Adobe Acrobat: Acrobat Pro or Standard DC (2017 or later). Not compatible with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11 (both 32-bit and 64-bit Acrobat installations are supported).
Protected Mode: supported. MaskIt runs with Acrobat’s Protected Mode switched on and does not require it to be disabled.

Support

If you encounter a problem or have a question not covered here, please get in touch: