Whiteout a PDF online

Whiteout a PDF by dropping it here: pick Whiteout on the toolbar, drag a box over the content you want hidden, and press Download. The box covers the content visually in any reader, but the original text stays in the file underneath, so this is a cover-up, not true redaction. Nothing is uploaded.

How to whiteout part of a PDF

1. Drop the PDF on this page or click Open a PDF.
2. Click Whiteout on the toolbar.
3. Drag a box over the words, numbers or picture you want covered. Draw more boxes for more spots; use the thumbnails sidebar to reach other pages.
4. Covered too much? Ctrl+Z, or Eraser and click the box.
5. Optionally click Text and type a replacement over the box.
6. Press Download. The new PDF shows the box; the file you opened is unchanged.

Whiteout vs. redact: what the box does and does not do

This is the part that matters if the content is sensitive. The Whiteout tool draws an opaque box on top of the page. When someone opens the downloaded PDF in Acrobat, Preview, Chrome or anything else, they see the box and not what is under it. But the text underneath is still in the file. Select-all and copy, a text extraction tool, or a search engine indexing the PDF can still read it. The box is a cover, not a deletion.

So use Whiteout for cosmetics: an old date, a price on a quote you are reusing, a stray note, a logo you do not want shown. Do not use it to hide a Social Security number, a salary, a patient name or anything a determined reader must not recover.

True redaction removes the content from the page data. That takes a redaction tool: Adobe Acrobat Pro's Redact, PDF-XChange Editor's redaction, or a workaround that flattens the page to an image (convert the page to a picture, cover the spot, make a PDF from the picture). The how to redact a PDF guide walks through each option. Background on why a PDF carries text behind what you see is on what is a PDF file.

Whiteout plus Add text: fixing a date, a name or a number

The most common reason to whiteout a PDF is not secrecy but a correction. The invoice says March, it should say April; the proposal names the previous client; a phone number changed. Cover the old value with a Whiteout box, then click the same spot with the Text tool and type the new value. In every reader the page reads as if the new value were printed there.

Two things to know. First, this does not rewrite the original text layer; the March is still in the file, under the box, which is fine for a correction and not fine for a secret. Second, matching the font exactly is not possible, so the new text may look slightly different from its neighbors. If you need the text itself changed, see edit text in a PDF; for just adding words, add text to a PDF.

What the whiteout looks like in other readers

The box is embedded with pdf-lib when you download, so Adobe Acrobat Reader, Preview, Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Google Drive's preview and phone readers all show the covered area. It prints as a blank spot. On a scanned page the box hides the pixels the same way, which is why Whiteout works on scans too, while text tools do not.

One test is worth doing before you send a whited-out file: open the download in another reader, press Ctrl+A to select everything, and see whether the covered words come along. On a text PDF they will, which is the honest reminder that this is a cover. On a scan without an OCR layer there is no text to select at all.

Alternatives for whiteout and redaction

• Adobe Acrobat Pro: Redact tool removes text and images permanently and can sanitize metadata; the free Reader does not redact.
• PDF-XChange Editor (Windows): has true redaction that deletes the underlying content.
• Preview on macOS: has a Redact tool in Markup on recent versions; check that the text is gone by trying to select it afterward.
• Microsoft Edge and Chrome: no whiteout or redaction; the draw tools can scribble over text but the text remains.
• Google Drive: no whiteout in the preview.
• Xodo: a whiteout-style tool in its editor; treat it as a cover like this one unless the app states redaction.
• Smallpdf, iLovePDF: online whiteout and redaction tools; the document is uploaded to their servers, which is worth weighing when the point is confidentiality.

Frequently asked questions