Guides
Six pages on blacking out a document so it stays blacked out, and on finding out whether it worked. Start at the top if you are not sure which you need — the first one is the reason the rest exist.
The copy-paste test is not enough
Everybody checks a blacked-out document by trying to copy the text out of it. That test catches the most common failure and misses eight others, several of them worse. This is the one to read first, and the one to send to somebody who thinks they have already checked.
How do I know my redaction actually worked?
Three checks, weakest to strongest, and what each one can and cannot tell you. What to do when a check comes back bad, and the two things no tool can check for you.
Black out a bank statement properly (and check it)
The job people do most often. What the person asking usually needs and what they do not, five steps that hold up, and the two questions everybody asks — whether it will be rejected, and whether it is allowed.
Why the black box in Word and Google Docs does not work
The highlighter, the filled rectangle, black text on black, and deleting and typing over. What each one actually does to the file, why careful people are caught by it, and a one-minute test you can run on a document you already have.
Print and scan versus software: which is actually safer?
A federal court recommends printing it, covering it with a marker and scanning it back in. Others call that unprofessional. Both have a real argument, and the comparison turns on something neither camp usually says out loud.
What a redaction QA report is, and why to keep one
A short record of what was removed, which checks ran, and what each found — written so it can be filed beside the job without containing the material it describes.
How the tools work
How Redaction Studio works — the method in plain English, why rebuilding a page as an image defeats an attack that recovers names from the spacing between the surviving letters, and what the method costs you.
How the redaction checks work — what each check looks at inside a file.
The two tools
Is your redaction real? — free. Drop in a PDF and it reports what is still recoverable from it. It only reads the file.
Redaction Studio — black out a PDF so it stays blacked out, with a report of what was removed and what was checked.
Both run in your browser with the wifi off. Neither certifies anything or makes anybody compliant with any regulation.