Redactor for Adobe Acrobat

What is PDF Redaction?

PDF redaction is the process of permanently removing sensitive information from a document so that it can never be recovered, searched, or viewed. Unlike simply drawing a black box over text, true redaction eliminates the underlying data from the PDF file — including text streams, metadata, and any hidden content.

Redaction is essential whenever documents must be shared but contain information that is confidential, legally protected, or personally identifiable. Common scenarios include:

Government and legal disclosure — Fulfilling FOIA requests, court-ordered discovery, and freedom of information obligations while protecting classified, privileged, or exempt information.
Regulatory compliance — Meeting GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, and other data protection requirements before sharing documents externally or across organisational boundaries.
Healthcare and financial services — Protecting patient records, account numbers, Social Security numbers, and other personally identifiable information (PII) in documents shared with third parties.
Corporate and HR — Removing employee details, salary information, trade secrets, and proprietary data from documents prior to distribution.
Insurance and legal discovery — Preparing large document sets for production with consistent, auditable redaction and exemption code tracking.

Effective redaction goes beyond visible content. Hidden metadata — such as author names, creation dates, embedded JavaScript, form field data, and file attachments — can also leak sensitive information and must be addressed through document sanitization.

Mapsoft Redactor automates the entire redaction workflow inside Adobe Acrobat: from identifying sensitive content using dictionaries, text patterns, and templates, through operator review and approval, to permanent content removal with compliance certificates and audit trails. Read our detailed guide to PDF redaction →

Redaction Methods

Multiple ways to identify and mark sensitive content for permanent removal.

Dictionary-Based Search

Create and manage custom dictionaries of words and phrases. Import, export, search, filter, and print dictionary contents. Each entry can carry an exemption code.

Text Pattern Matching

Predefined patterns for SSN, EIN, phone numbers, email addresses, dates, postal addresses, credit card numbers, and bracketed text. Full custom regex support with region-specific formats for US, UK, Canada, Australia, and EU.

Area Redaction Templates

Define fixed-position redaction zones and save them as reusable templates (.amt files) — ideal for forms, W-2s, and standardised document layouts with configurable page repeat.

Manual Area Drawing

Draw redaction areas freehand on any page with a dedicated drawing tool. Assign exemption codes from a floating toolbar. Optionally apply to all remaining pages.

Offset Redacting

Use keyword anchors to create redaction marks at a different location from the matched text. Search for labels like “Mail to:” and redact the address area below, above, left, or right with configurable offset and size.

Font Style Filtering

Restrict text searches to specific font families and size ranges. Match full or partial font names to target only the text styles that contain sensitive information.

Review, Compliance & Security

Built for environments where provable, auditable redaction is a requirement.

Redaction Preview

Review every marked annotation before applying redaction. Accept or reject individual items, navigate to each annotation in the document, and use Accept All / Reject All for bulk decisions.

Redaction Certificate

Generate a formal HTML compliance report documenting what was redacted, when, by whom, which exemption codes were applied, and a per-page breakdown — for FOIA, GDPR, and HIPAA audit trails.

Document Sanitization

Remove hidden metadata that could leak sensitive information: document properties, XMP metadata, embedded thumbnails, JavaScript, bookmarks, form fields, hidden layers, search index, and file attachments.

Exemption Codes

Pre-configured libraries for FOIA (50 U.S.C. §552), Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. §552a), and Discovery Case codes. Create custom exemption code groups with a built-in editor. Codes attach as annotation comments and can be displayed on redacted areas.

Watermarking

Apply text watermarks such as “REDACTED” or “CONFIDENTIAL” to pages after redaction, with configurable font size, colour, opacity, and rotation angle.

Custom Profiles

Save and load named redaction profiles that bundle all your settings — preferences, pattern selections, dictionary name, and appearance options — for repeatable, consistent workflows across teams.

Batch Processing & Workflow

Process hundreds of documents with consistent, repeatable redaction.

Batch Folder Processing

Select an input folder, output folder, and a saved batch configuration. Process all matching PDFs automatically with named configurations for dictionary, pattern, template, or all-text markup with optional auto-redact.

Review & Redact Workflow

A guided wizard that loads files from an input folder, applies markup, presents each document for operator review, then redacts and saves to the output folder before moving to the next file. Approve or skip each document individually.

Additional Tools

Export document text to ASCII or HTML with page separators and character counts. Convert pages to raster images (configurable DPI, B&W option) for vector content redaction. Generate annotation summary reports. Remove annotations selectively.

Standards & Compliance References

Mapsoft Redactor is designed to support workflows governed by the following regulations and standards. These official resources provide detailed guidance on the legal requirements for redaction and data protection:

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) — 5 U.S.C. §552 (US Department of Justice). Redactor includes built-in FOIA exemption codes (b)(1) through (b)(9).
Privacy Act of 1974 — 5 U.S.C. §552a (US Department of Justice). Redactor includes pre-configured Privacy Act exemption codes.
HIPAA Privacy Rule — Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (US Department of Health & Human Services). Governs the protection of patient health information in shared documents.
EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (European Commission). Requires organisations to protect personal data when sharing documents.
UK GDPR — UK GDPR Guidance (Information Commissioner’s Office). UK-specific data protection guidance for organisations.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — CCPA Information (California Attorney General). Requires businesses to protect consumer personal information.
NIST Privacy Framework — Privacy Framework 1.0 (National Institute of Standards and Technology). A voluntary tool for managing privacy risk in enterprise environments.
PDF 2.0 Standard (ISO 32000-2) — ISO 32000-2 Resource (PDF Association). Defines the redaction annotation type used by Redactor for standards-compliant markup.

Redactor generates formal redaction certificates documenting what was redacted, when, and by whom — providing the audit trail required by these regulations. Learn more about PDF redaction best practices →

Need Something More?

If this product doesn't quite meet your requirements, we can help. With over 30 years of Adobe development expertise, our team can modify existing products or build entirely custom solutions tailored to your specific workflow. Whether you need additional features, integration with your systems, or a completely bespoke tool, get in touch to discuss your needs.

We also welcome suggestions for new features and new product ideas. If we hear enough requests for a particular capability, it moves up our development priority list — so your feedback directly shapes what we build next.

Custom Development Consultancy Contact Us Suggest a Feature