How to Redact PDF on Mac

Audrey Goodwin

2020-05-27 17:03:30 • Filed to: PDFelement for Mac How-Tos • Proven solutions

You may wondering how do I black out text on a PDF? This article shows how to redact PDF on Mac with this powerful PDF redaction tool - PDFelement. Open your PDF in it, and click the Redaction tool to white out the content as you need, not only text, but also images and pages. Let's keep reading to get more details.

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How to Redact a PDF on Mac

PDFelement for Mac is a powerful one-stop shop for all your PDF needs. Let's take a look at the detailed steps about how to redact PDF document on Mac.

Step 1. Open PDF

Once you launch the program, you will see the "Open File" button at the bottom of the screen. Click on it to select the PDF that you want to protect through redaction. Once you've done this, click on the "Open" button.

Step 2. Redact PDF on Mac

As mentioned earlier, you can redact text, images, and pages on your PDF by clicking the "Redact" button.

To redact text and images click on the "Text & Image" button on the top. Now drag the cursor to highlight desired text or images. Once you release your mouse, the item will be automatically blacked out.
To redact pages, click the "Pages" button on the top. A new window will appear. Select the page range that you want to redact.

After selecting the content that you want to redact, click on the "Apply" button on the top-right corner. The selected area will be removed permanently. Once you save the document, you will not be able to uncover the redacted area. If you are ok with this, then proceed and apply the changes.

Step 3. Edit Redaction Properties

You can also change the redaction properties if you have a PDF document with redacted content. When you click on the "Redact" button, you can select a preferred color on the top. You can test the changes by redacting parts of the PDF file.

Redacting PDF files is a great way to fully protect them, since when you use PDF encryption software, it is still possible that someone can decrypt the file. Therefore, the most effective way to protect confidential information is to remove or cover up sensitive fields or pages permanently through redaction.

Convert to Editable PDF for Redaction on Mac

Step 1. Convert PDF to Editable Word Document

After opening your PDF file in PDFelement for Mac, click the "File" > "Export to" button on the top menu bar to convert it to a Word document. In this case you'll want to select "Word".

Step 2. Redact in Word

After converting your file to a Word document, you can find the file in the output folder and open it using Word. To learn more details about how to redact in a Word document click here.

Best Tool to Redact PDF on Mac

Although there are different redaction software tools available on the market for Mac, nothing beats PDFelement for Mac. This software is recognized for its ability to edit, convert, create and OCR PDF files. It also allows you to black out text, images and pages permanently, plus perform batch redaction on your PDF. Some of its other features include the ones listed below.

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It lets you modify text, images, objects, and pages, as well as annotate and highlight using different colors, or add comments, sticky notes, bates numbering, and watermarks etc.
This tool supports creation of PDF files from different sources. It also converts PDF files to editable formats like MS-Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Images etc.
It allows you to fill PDF forms, sign forms and create them.
It includes an OCR functionality that makes image-ased or scanned files readable, editable and searchable.
It is compatible with macOS X 10.15(Catalina), 10.14 (Mojave), 10.13(High Sierra), and 10.12.