Guides
How to redact a PDF: visual versus permanent
There are two completely different things people call redaction, and confusing them is one of the more expensive mistakes available in document handling. One covers something up on a screen. The other removes it from the file.
This guide is for anyone who has to put a document in front of a court or hand it to another party with something obscured on it. By the end you will be able to tell the two apart, know which tools do which, know how to verify that a removal actually removed something, and know exactly where Exhibit Room sits in that picture.
The short version, stated once and plainly: never rely on a drawn box to produce a redacted document.
Before you start
Work out first which of the two jobs you have. "The jury should not see this account number on the screen" is a presentation job. "We are producing this document to the other side with the account number removed" is a file job. They need different tools and they carry different consequences when they go wrong.
Gather the source document in its best available form, the instruction telling you what must be obscured — a protective order, a privilege log, a statute or rule on personal identifiers — and a copy of the file you can work on destructively. Never redact your only copy; keep the unredacted original in a separate folder that is clearly named.
On formats: a PDF exported from a word processor carries its text as text, and often carries author names, revision history and other metadata as well. A scanned page carries an image, so removing visible characters is a matter of altering the image. Both cases need verification afterwards, and they fail in different ways.
Step by step
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Identify what actually has to be obscured, and write it down
List the items by page: account numbers on pages 2 and 5, a home address on page 7, a third party's date of birth on page 11. A written list is what you will verify against later, and it is what you hand to a reviewer. Working from memory guarantees a miss on a long document.
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Understand visual redaction — a box drawn over the page
A visual redaction is a black rectangle drawn on top of the page. It hides the content from view on screen and in presentation, and it is reversible: the annotation can be moved or deleted, and the text or image underneath is still in the PDF exactly as it was. This is what Exhibit Room's redaction overlay is, and Exhibit Room says so plainly on its visual redaction page. It is a presentation aid and nothing more.
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Understand permanent redaction — removing the content
A permanent redaction deletes the underlying content from the file and then draws the marking. The characters are gone from the text layer, the pixels are gone from the image, and copying the page or extracting its text returns nothing where the redaction is. This is a different operation from drawing, and only tools built for it perform it.
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Use a dedicated redaction tool when the file itself must be sanitized
Software with a redaction feature — Adobe Acrobat Pro's redaction tools, or an equivalent product from another vendor, including several document-review platforms — will mark content for redaction and then apply the redaction, which is the step that removes it. Exhibit Room does not do this and does not attempt to. Choose the tool on your firm's list, and use the same one consistently so that everyone verifies the same way.
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Deal with the metadata as well as the page
Removing visible text does not remove document properties, author names, comments, bookmarks or attachments carried inside the PDF. Most redaction tools have a separate "remove hidden information" or sanitize step; run it, and run it after the redaction rather than before.
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Verify by attacking your own file
Open the redacted PDF and try to defeat it. Search the document for the text you removed. Select all, copy, and paste into a plain text editor to see what comes out. Check the document properties for author and title fields. Look at any attachments panel. If any of the removed content reappears, the redaction did not happen and the file must not leave your office.
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Have a second person verify against the list
Hand the reviewer your page-by-page list and the redacted file, not the original, and ask them to confirm each item and to repeat the copy-and-paste check. Two people using a written list catch almost everything; one person working from memory catches most things, which is not the same standard.
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Use Exhibit Room's overlay only for what happens on the screen
In Exhibit Room, select the redaction tool from the annotation toolbar and draw a black box over the area you do not want displayed. It covers the content in the exhibit view and in presentation mode, and like every other annotation it can be moved, resized, deleted and undone, with the original PDF left untouched. Use it to keep an irrelevant figure off a courtroom display — never to create a document you will produce, file or email.
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Import the sanitized file when the redaction is real
Where a document has to be genuinely redacted, do that work in the redaction tool first, verify it, and then import the resulting PDF into your exhibit set. That way the exhibit you present and the document you produced are the same file, which is one fewer thing to explain if anyone asks.
Examples
In the fictional matter of Smith v. Jones, Exhibit 011 is a four-page bank statement. Two things need handling, and they are not the same job.
First, the statement will be produced to the other side under a protective order with the full account number and an unrelated third party's transactions removed. That is a file job. A paralegal opens the statement in the firm's redaction software, marks the account number on every page and the eleven third-party lines on pages 2 and 3, applies the redactions, runs the sanitize step to strip document properties, and then verifies: copy the whole document into a text editor, confirm the account number does not appear, confirm the third-party payee names do not appear. A second reviewer repeats the check against the written list. The verified file becomes the exhibit PDF.
Second, at trial, counsel wants the running balance column off the screen while the witness is asked only about a single date. That is a presentation job, and the balances are not confidential — they are just distracting. A visual redaction overlay drawn in Exhibit Room covers that column during presentation. Nobody imagines it has changed the file, because it has not, and the produced version already dealt with everything that genuinely had to go.
Related terminology
A redacted document is still an exhibit and still carries an exhibit number; where a redacted version and a complete version both exist, teams usually mark them separately and say which is which. Pages drawn from a production will carry a Bates number, and keeping that number visible after redaction is what lets the other side match your version to theirs.
Frequently asked questions
Can Exhibit Room permanently redact a PDF?
No. Exhibit Room's redaction is a visual overlay for presentation. It does not remove content from the file, and the application does not modify the imported PDF at all. Permanent redaction has to be done in a tool built for it before the file is imported.
Why is drawing a black box so risky?
Because the content is still there. Anyone who receives the file can move or delete the annotation, or extract the text underneath, and in a produced document that is a disclosure. A box that looks like a redaction and is not one is worse than no box, because it creates false confidence.
How do I check whether a PDF someone sent me is truly redacted?
Select all the text and paste it somewhere plain, then look at what comes through under the black areas. Check the document properties and any attachments. On a scanned document also look closely at the marked areas at high zoom for faint remaining characters.
Is a flattened PDF the same as a redacted one?
No. Flattening merges layers so the box cannot easily be moved, but on a text-based PDF the underlying characters may remain extractable, and metadata is untouched. Treat flattening as a formatting step, not a security step.
What about redacting a scanned document with no text layer?
The content is pixels, so a genuine redaction alters the image. A dedicated redaction tool handles that; a drawn annotation does not. Zoom in on the applied redaction afterwards and confirm there is no ghosting at the edges.
Can I hand the other side my Exhibit Room trial file instead?
That would carry the unredacted PDFs, since annotations are stored separately from the documents. A .exhibitroom export is a backup and transfer format for your own team, not a production format.
See what a presentation-only overlay does
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