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Can't redact?

Community Beginner ,
Mar 06, 2018 Mar 06, 2018

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I redact a section of my document with Adobe Acrobat Pro but the 'apply redactions' button is opache and doesn't allow me to click on it. What am I doing wrong?

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

LEGEND , Mar 06, 2018 Mar 06, 2018

I would check the security settings for the PDF. It is located under "File => Properties" and then the tab labled "Security".

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Community Expert , Oct 13, 2023 Oct 13, 2023

The solution is to ask ML to produce a document that contains the needed information, without any sensitive data. This is very common in the banking world and they should be able to do it.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 06, 2018 Mar 06, 2018

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I would check the security settings for the PDF. It is located under "File => Properties" and then the tab labled "Security".

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 06, 2018 Mar 06, 2018

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Thanks for responding, gkaiseril, but it says that changing document is not allowed

It says that Changing the document is not allowed. It also tells me that Document assembly is not allowed,( though I did that without an issue). It tells me that to remove security restrictions to set the security method to No Security. It is set to no security. . It still doesn't allow me to apply redactions??? Is there something else I can do?

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Community Expert ,
Mar 07, 2018 Mar 07, 2018

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Did you digitally sign the file, by any chance?

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Adobe Employee ,
Apr 04, 2018 Apr 04, 2018

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Hi Ladyodenacht,

Sorry for the delay in response.

gkaiseril, pointed you in the right direction. Sadly, there isn't much that can be done. You have to check with the file author, to take off the security and then you may redact the file.

Feel free to update the discussion if you have further questions.

-Tariq Dar

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New Here ,
Apr 28, 2021 Apr 28, 2021

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I was struggling with this as well, and found your post. The solution here didn't work for me, but I ended up just printing it to pdf, and that new pdf let me redact and apply. 

 

I needed to redact a document that had been signed via DocuSign so that a new person could review the prior docuement without seeing PII. And this appears to have done the trick.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 28, 2021 Apr 28, 2021

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What you did invalidated the signature entirely, you know...

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Explorer ,
Jun 08, 2021 Jun 08, 2021

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Yes.  And the bloody thing sucks.  You redact one page, it redacts all the pages AUTOMATICALLY!! What is the point of having a tool to select what to redact when it replicates it to everything!?

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Community Expert ,
Jun 08, 2021 Jun 08, 2021

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That is not normal behavior. It could mean your file is corrupt.

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New Here ,
Jul 30, 2021 Jul 30, 2021

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You are absolutely wrong here. I have seen you write this on several threads now and you have no idea what you are talking about. 

 

If there is a signed contract, then both parties will have the original non-redacted versions in their files. These are the proper and enforceable versions. If one of these parties needs to send portions of this contract to others, but wishes to redact specific portions of said contract to protect sensitive information that the other party, or the party doing the redacting, does not wish to share with a third party, this in no way diminishes the enforceability of the original signed document. 

 

This  is the entire point of redactions. You take something that has been executed in its final form, and then remove portions of it from view to sanitize it so that others may review what you wish to share. It has no bearing on the original signed version of the document.

 

To say otherwise demonstrates a very incorrect view of the law and how attorneys and law enforcement professionals use redactions.  

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New Here ,
Sep 20, 2021 Sep 20, 2021

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I am having this same problem and it is a signed document; I did see in another thread that it is not "appropriate" to redact a signed document. Sometimes it is and I need to know if I can override it (already checked security settings and it is locked). My company used to collect customer credit info. We are no longer doing that and are trying to redact this information off of old contracts for client protection. It will not let me edit the original document to delete that page either so that is why I am attempting redact. Can I override? or is there another feature option?

Thanks

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Community Expert ,
Sep 20, 2021 Sep 20, 2021

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Whether it's "appropriate" or not is irrelevant. It's not technically feasible, as a digital signature locks the file from editing, expect for filling in other fields and signing it again (if the signer author of the file allowed it).

If you want to make changes to the file you have to do so before signing it.

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New Here ,
Feb 10, 2022 Feb 10, 2022

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This is moronic, to put it mildly. The parties signed an agreement and that's legally binding. But often the document needs to be shared with others who are not privy to the sensitive information contained in it and therefore the document needs to be partially redacted before it is circulated. To stay in a very simple example, consider a settlement agreement where the agreement has been reached between opposing parties, you need to let certain departments inside your own organisation have copies of it, but they should not have access to personal data contained in that document because they lack legitimate reason for it under EU GDPR. You'd need to redact the copy you are circulating internally.

I can give thousands of more examples. Letters exchanged between regulators and one party where a third party needs to know that the letter has been exchanged but cannot see some of the information contained in it, board resolutions passing salary increase where certain departments are not allowed to have access to the actual salary figures but must keep records of the resolutions. Registrars filings. Etc, etc, etc. 

This is a typical example of a company developing a software without having a clue about how clients use it. In this case, not even understanding the basic concepts of law because this is high school Intro do Law 101, day 1.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 10, 2022 Feb 10, 2022

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I'm not going to argue with you, but it could also be a case of users not understanding the technical issues of developing something the way they want it to work. Think that redaction is just one form of possible editing you can perform on a document. If you allow editing of any kind it becomes a slippery slope, at the end of which we can both have "legally binding" documents signed by the two of us, each saying something completely different, and there's no real way of proving which is the original and which is the manipulated version.

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New Here ,
Feb 10, 2022 Feb 10, 2022

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And that is why many major legal documents are still paper. 

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Explorer ,
Oct 12, 2023 Oct 12, 2023

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I yearly need to submit my Merrill Lynch statement to a cruise line for a Shareholder benefit. They instruct you to redact the account number. Acrobat cannot do this without some help. You need a third party app to allow editing of the document by "unlocking it". Then, of course, you can fake the whole document if you wish.  All you need to do is redact the brokerage account number and any other account numbers, access codes, etc. Between Merrill Lynch and Adobe, they imply by all means email your account numbers and social security numbers to everyone... We will make sure that you are forced to do that.  The only other solution is to get an app that "unlocks" the document. Thus destroying the integrity of the document at the same time.  There should be a way to protect your identity while preserving the integrity of the document, but there is not. So search for a third party app that unlocks and destroys the integrtity of the document. Othwise be prepared to lose all the money in your brokerage account when emailing your sensitive data.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 13, 2023 Oct 13, 2023

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The solution is to ask ML to produce a document that contains the needed information, without any sensitive data. This is very common in the banking world and they should be able to do it.

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