Remove names from a PDF with PDF Redact
This opens a contact sheet and searches for John Doe and Jane Roe as exact terms. Put the names you need to remove into the terms box, one per line, then mark all and check the list before you export.
- Open the PDF and type each name on its own line in the exact terms field.
- Press Find matches and scroll the list: every hit shows its page and some surrounding words.
- Untick a hit that is not a name you want removed, or press Mark all.
- Look for variants the search did not catch (initials, a surname alone, a typo) and add them as terms or draw boxes.
- Review, export, read the check report and download.
What to know
An exact term matches the words as written, ignoring case unless you tick Match case, and a space in the term matches any run of whitespace, so a name that wraps over a line break is still found. Tick Whole words if a short name sits inside longer words.
Names show up in more forms than people expect: Doe, J. Doe, Mr Doe, an email address that contains the name, a file name in a footer, a signature. Search for each form you can think of, then scan the page previews for the rest. The built-in email pattern is a quick way to catch the addresses. If a page is a scan, the search finds nothing there because there is no text to search; the page list shows a warning for those pages and you draw the boxes by hand.
Updated · Cosmovex
Questions
Does it find a name that is split over two lines?
Yes, when the PDF has a text layer: a space in the term matches any whitespace including a line break. It cannot find text that is part of a picture or a scan.
Will it catch misspellings or initials?
No. It matches what you type. Add each variant as its own term, or draw a box. Review the preview for anything missed.
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.
