Adobe Acrobat: Fixing Redaction Problems

If you cannot redact (remove) sensitive information in Adobe Acrobat Pro, the file may have security restrictions, be image-only, or have been created in a program that doesn’t fully support Acrobat’s redaction features. This article explains how to check and fix these problems.

Summary

If you cannot redact (remove) sensitive information in Adobe Acrobat Pro, the file may have security restrictions, be image-only, or have been created in a way that interferes with redaction. Use the steps below to resolve the issue.

Who This Article Is For

Any Gwinnett County employee using Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Symptoms

• The Redaction tool is unavailable or grayed out.

• You can mark text or images for redaction, but clicking Apply does nothing.

• An error appears when trying to redact a PDF created outside Adobe Acrobat.

• After saving, sensitive content still appears to be present.

Cause

• PDF has security settings enabled by the author (not “No Security”).

• PDF is an image-only scan with no searchable text (OCR not yet run).

• PDF was created in a non-Adobe tool that produced incompatible formatting/encoding.

Resolution Steps

Step 1 – Check security settings

1. Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.

2. Go to File > Properties > Security.

3. If Security Method is anything other than No Security, ask the document owner to provide a version without security restrictions.

Step 2 – If the PDF is an image-only scan

1. Go to Tools > Scan & OCR.

2. Choose Recognize Text > In This File and run OCR.

3. Retry the redaction process.

Step 3 – Re-save the PDF in Acrobat

1. Open the file in Acrobat Pro.

2. Go to File > Save As Other > PDF, or print to Adobe PDF.

3. Open the new PDF and retry the redaction.

Step 4 – Apply and sanitize

1. Go to Tools > Redact, then mark the text or images to remove.

2. Click Apply to permanently remove the content.

3. Select More Options > Sanitize Document to remove hidden metadata and unmarked sensitive content.

Known Limitations or Alternatives

• If the document owner has applied security restrictions, redaction will be blocked until an unsecured version is provided.

• For highly sensitive documents, verify final output after sanitizing and follow your department’s records handling policy.

Next Steps if Issue Persists

Contact the IT Service Desk at 770.822.8915 for assistance.