PDF Bench
Redaction checklist: what to check before you share
Most redaction mistakes happen during review, not while drawing boxes. Running through a short checklist helps you catch things before they leave your hands.
Before you export
- Scroll through every page thumbnail — not just the one you were working on.
- Make sure each redaction box fully covers the text or area it needs to.
- Pay extra attention to rotated, cropped, or scanned pages — they can surprise you.
After you export
- Open the redacted PDF in a separate viewer (not the same tool you used to redact).
- Try selecting or copying text near each redacted area — if you can grab it, it's not fully removed.
- Zoom in on the edges of redacted areas to make sure nothing sensitive is peeking through.
Before you send
- If hidden metadata matters too, run Sanitize on the redacted file.
- Check the filename itself — if the original name is sensitive, rename it.
- Keep the original and the cleaned version separate so you don't mix them up.