how to flatten object in document?

[Guest]

I am trying to redact confidential information within a document by placing black rectangles over the area which need to be redacted.  once I do this however, the data still exists beneath the rectangles.

I attempted "refrying" the pdf by printing it to a new pdf.  This seemed to flatten the black rectangles so that they were no longer able to be selected as objects, HOWEVER, when I scroll down through the document I can still see the underlying data as the black rectangles seem to flicker as the page is scrolling.

Is there a way to basically fuse down the black rectangles so that they fully replace the data they are covering?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Redaction requires total obliteration of the content, not simply “placing black rectangles over the area which need to be redacted.” The text objects and any metadata associated with same must be totally removed from the PDF file.

Acrobat Pro provides this function explicitly allowing you to mark what must be redacted then actually doing the redaction!

No, “refrying PDF” won't do a proper redaction job and for that matter is strongly discouraged in terms of other nasty side effects in the resultant PDF file.

          - Dov

[try67]

This is NOT the right way of removing data from a PDF file. What version of Acrobat are you using?

[Guest]

Thanks for the FAST help with that question.  I was unaware Acrobat had that redacting function...just used it and it did exactly what I needed.