How to check that a PDF is really redacted
A PDF can look redacted and still hold the original text. These checks take a few minutes, work on any PDF from any tool, and catch the common failures.
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Your PDF is opened, redacted and checked in your browser. It is not uploaded. Do not take our word for it: you can check with your browser’s own tools. See how to check.
Five checks
- Search for it. Open the PDF and search for a word that should be gone. If a page jumps or a hit is highlighted under a box, the text is still there.
- Copy under the box. Press Ctrl+A to select all, copy, and paste into a plain text editor. Look for anything that should have been removed.
- Extract the text. If you have a command line, run pdftotext redacted.pdf - and look through the output. This reads the file the way a script would, with no viewer in between.
- Read the document properties. Check File, Properties for title, author, subject, keywords and the program that made the file. Metadata often names a person or a project.
- Look for extras. Check for attachments, comments, form fields and links. A file can carry a whole earlier copy as an attachment.
What the LocalRedactor receipt checks
Before it offers a download, LocalRedactor runs a second program on the saved file. That program checks that the marked text is gone from the page content, that it is not anywhere in the raw bytes, that no document metadata is left, that no script or other active content is left, and that every box covers its area. The receipt records the result of each check with page numbers and counts, plus a SHA-256 fingerprint of the saved file so you can tell later if it changed.
What the receipt does not contain
No removed text, no file name, no value from the document. It is safe to keep with the file or send to someone who needs to know a check was made.
What it does not do
- Manual checks only find what you think to look for. A word you did not search for can still be there.
- The verifier checks the marked text and the kinds of hidden content it knows about. Passing is strong evidence, not a certificate.
- It cannot judge whether you marked everything that needed to be marked. That part is a review of your own.
- Checking someone else’s file in LocalRedactor is not a feature. It checks files it has just exported. Encrypted PDFs cannot be opened here at all.
Questions
Can I use LocalRedactor to check a PDF someone else redacted?
Not as a separate feature. The check runs on files the app exports. For other files use the five checks above, which need no special software.
What is the SHA-256 in the receipt?
A fingerprint of the saved file. If even one byte changes later, the fingerprint no longer matches, so you can tell the file is not the one that was checked.
What if the check fails?
Nothing is saved. The app tells you which check failed and on which pages, without showing any of the document’s text.
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