Redact dates in a PDF with PDF Redact
This opens a case file with several dates in different styles and the date finder switched on. Press Find matches, mark the ones that identify someone, and leave the rest visible.
- Open the PDF. The Dates pattern is already ticked.
- Press Find matches: dates in year-first, day-first or month-first numeric form and with month names are listed.
- Untick dates that may stay, such as the document date, and mark the rest.
- Preview, export, read the report and download.
What to know
The date pattern reads 2024-03-09, 09/03/2024 and 9.3.24 style numbers, and written dates such as 9 March 2024 or March 9, 2024. It checks that the month and day are plausible, so 2024-13-45 is not matched.
A date alone is rarely sensitive. A date next to a name is: a date of birth, an admission date, a signing date. That is why the list is meant to be read, ticking only what needs to go, rather than marking everything. Dates in tables or headers can be split into separate text pieces by the PDF, and then the pattern cannot see them as one date. The page preview is the check for that.
Updated · Cosmovex
Questions
Can it tell a date of birth from other dates?
No. It finds dates; you decide which ones to mark, using the surrounding words shown in the list.
Does it read two-digit years?
Yes in the numeric forms, for example 09/03/24. Ambiguous day and month order is accepted as long as both could be a day or a month.
What do I lose when the output is made of images?
Text in the whole output can no longer be selected, searched or copied, links and form fields stop working, and the file is usually larger. That is the cost of making sure the covered content is really gone, and the tool says so before you export.
How do I know the black boxes really removed the text?
After export the tool re-opens the file it just wrote and checks it: it contains only page images, there is no text layer to extract, and the pixels inside every box are black. You should still open the result and read every page; the checks cannot tell whether you covered everything sensitive.
The free plan covers everything on this page. PDF Redact Pro ($29, paid once) is described on the PDF Redact page.
