WalkingPDF

checker

The box was drawn, the text is still there

Drawing a black rectangle over text hides it from the eye and not from the file. In most PDF editors a redaction is a two-step operation - mark the area, then apply the redactions - and the second step is the one that removes the characters. Stop after the first step and the page looks redacted while the words remain selectable, searchable and copyable.

What the reader sees, and what the file contains

The served page shows a solid rectangle where the name was. Select all, copy, paste into a text editor, and the name is on the clipboard. Search for it and the page is returned. The visual redaction is complete; the file-level redaction never happened.

Four ways text survives a box

The last one is the reason a check cannot be satisfied by looking at the picture. Every one of these four looks the same on screen.

  • **A mark that was never applied.** The annotation exists; the underlying characters were never removed. The most common case, and the one this page is about.
  • **A drawn rectangle.** A black shape placed over the text rather than a redaction. Nothing is removed at all; the text is simply behind an opaque object.
  • **A highlight used as a redaction.** A `/Highlight` annotation marks the words without removing them - the text stays selectable and the marking is a hint, not a redaction.
  • **An image with an OCR layer.** The visible page is a picture of a redacted document, and the invisible text layer underneath still holds the original words.

What the check reports

The audit looks for text that is still extractable in the region a redaction covers, and reports the page and the box. A redaction annotation present but never applied is reported on its own, because the fix is different from a leak: the annotation has to be applied, not redrawn. A highlight over text that was meant to be redacted is named as a highlight, and the wording says what it actually does, because calling it a redaction would be false.

Check this set for it now

Upload the PDFs you are about to serve, plus the DAT and OPT if you have them, or one ZIP of the folder. The verdict, the file list and the worst findings are free. You pay only if you want the certificate, the report and the findings CSV to hand to somebody else.

The verdict, the file list and the worst findings are free and stay free. The certificate, report, findings CSV, manifest and deficiency report unlock on payment, from $49 for a set up to 1,000 pages. The three sizes.

Frequently asked questions

Does the check read the redacted content out loud?

No. The finding names the page and the location and says that text is still extractable. The report does not reproduce the redacted words, because the report is a document that will itself be forwarded.

Is a burned redaction safe?

Burned means the characters were removed and the page re-rendered, so there is nothing left to extract - that is what the check verifies. It cannot tell you whether the right thing was redacted, or whether the visible remainder still identifies the person. That is a judgement, and it belongs to the reviewer.

What about a redacted file and its unredacted original both in the set?

That is a separate check and a separate blocker. If the working copy and the redacted export were both uploaded, serving the set serves both - and the redaction is undone by the file sitting next to it.

Keep reading

hub What we check, and what each check means Seventy checks run against a production. Each one is a deterministic read of the files - the stamps on the pages, the structure of the PDF, the rows of the load file - and each returns a pass, a warning or a blocker with the file and page it came from. Nothing here is a model's opinion, and nothing here is claimed on the certificate unless it actually ran. guide Why redactions fail, and how to test a file before you serve it A redaction is not a black rectangle. It is the removal of the underlying text, and most failed redactions are rectangles drawn over text that is still in the file. The content survives in four ways: the text object is still present under the shape, the text is in the invisible layer, the metadata or annotations carry it, or an earlier revision of the page still holds it. Each is detectable by reading the file. guide How to QC an incoming production A production you receive has to load, read and reconcile before anyone can review it. These twelve checks run in the order that surfaces the expensive failures first: does the load file import, does every row have an image, does the numbering hold, and is every page searchable. Run them before the review clock starts, not after. checker A Bates number that appears twice A duplicate Bates number means two pages answer to the same citation. In a review platform the second one overwrites or collides with the first; on paper, a request to "turn to ABC000418" has two answers. It is one of the few production defects that is always wrong, because there is no protocol in which two pages may share a number. checker The stamp prints over the words A stamp placed on top of body text makes the words it covers unreadable in the copy that gets served, and a stamp placed too close to the paper edge is cropped by the printer or the scanner. Neither changes the file's numbering, so neither is caught by counting anything - it is a check of where the glyphs actually sit. checker Pages no search can reach A page with no text layer is a picture. It opens, it prints, it looks correct - and no keyword search in any review platform will ever return it. A production where some pages are searchable and some are not is worse than one where none are, because the reviewer has no reason to suspect the gap.