PDF redaction is an effective way to remove sensitive text and graphics from PDF documents. However, sometimes you may want to review what you have redacted. To do this, you need to use a PDF redaction tool to remove redaction from PDF.
However, these tools only work if you have not completed the redaction process and have not saved your PDF redactions. Once you black out PDF text, all the text or information you have redacted is gone forever, and it is impossible to recover the black-out text. Therefore, make sure to copy the original file before removing PDF redactions.
How to Remove Redaction from PDF?
In this guide, we will discuss in detail how to remove redaction from PDF using the four methods.
Way 1. Use Adobe Acrobat Pro
When you redact information in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro, it creates two separate files: the original PDF and the edited PDF. Removing redactions from a PDF is easy if you have access to the original file. Here is the guide
- Open Adobe Acrobat Pro and select the PDF file.
- Click the Edit tab at the top of the screen.
- Scroll through the document and look for the redaction you want to remove.
- Once you find it, right-click it and click Delete from the drop-down list.
This only works if you have access to the original PDF, not just the edited file. Once the file is saved and the redactions have been applied, there is no way to recover the information. If you overwrite the original PDF with the edited version, the redacted information is gone forever.
Way 2. Use Nitro
Another solution to remove revision marks is to use Nitro. Like Adobe Acrobat, it is also a great PDF redaction software. With its help, you can easily add, apply, or remove revisions in PDF documents in simple steps.
To remove redaction from PDF, you can use the feature of Nitro and then follow the following steps:
- Open a PDF file with Nitro.
- Choose Erase and then right-click on the redaction area to select Delete to easily remove the blacked-out test from the PDF.
Way 3. Use AvePDF
If you don't want to download or install any desktop applications, online tools are a great choice for you. In fact, there are many online programs that allow you to edit PDFs.
AvePDF is an all-in-one online PDF program, and it's completely free. AvePDF can help electronically sign, compress, edit, merge, organize, and make PDF read-only. What's more, it can undo the editing operations in PDF to remove redaction from PDF online:
- Go to the AvePDF website.
- Click on Protect > Redact PDF.
- Click the Choose File button to upload the target PDF file.
- Select the redaction you want to remove and click the Delete icon to remove it.
Way 4. Use Xodo
Xodo allows users to redact sensitive information from wherever they want, for free. While redacting, you can change the redaction color or remove the blacked-out text with a single click. It has an intuitive user interface. The steps are as follows:
- Click on the redaction mark you want to remove.
- Click on the Delete button to undo the redaction in the PDF.
How to Edit PDF Files After Removing Redaction?
To remove white-out from PDF, you can use MiniTool PDF Editor, a lightweight and portable PDF desktop program for Windows.
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The White-out feature allows you to black out unwanted text to protect its PDF information, while you can also decide whether to show the redacted content.
- When editing a PDF, locate the place that has black.
- Right-click on the part, and click Delete White-out to remove the black part.
After removing the redaction area in PDF, you may need to edit the previous version on your PC. MiniTool PDF Editor is a professional and feature-rich PDF manager that allows you to convert various types of file formats to PDF, such as PDF/A, Word, Excel, TXT, images, PPT, HTML, EPUB, XPS, etc., and vice versa.
With MiniTool PDF Editor, you can also use it to do conversions between different image formats and various file formats to images, like converting HEIC to PNG/JPG/BMP/TIF, PPT to image, Excel to image, Word to image, and so on.
Bottom Line
How to remove redaction from PDF? This post provides 4 easy ways to help you do that. You can have a try.