How to redact a PDF
Upload your PDF.
Enable Redact mode from the right sidebar.
Drag to draw redaction boxes over sensitive areas.
Review the boxes — click any box to remove it.
Click Download redacted to export the flattened PDF.
Why flattened redaction matters
A black rectangle placed over text is not always safe — underlying text may still exist in the PDF structure.
CrabPDF renders each page to canvas and burns redaction boxes into the output image.
The result is image-based: text is no longer selectable or extractable.
The tradeoff is that the exported PDF is larger and no longer text-searchable.
Private by design
All redaction processing happens locally in your browser. No PDF content is sent to a server. After CrabPDF has loaded, you can turn off Wi-Fi and continue redacting.
CrabPDF is experimental. Always verify redacted documents before sharing them.