Redaction lets you hide (black out) sensitive parts of a PDF before other people in the Data Room see it. Use it to remove personal details, account numbers, or deal terms. You don't need to edit the file outside the Data Room or upload it again.
How it works
Redaction happens in two stages, so nothing is hidden until you're sure.
- Mark what to hide. You choose words, areas or PII categories to redact. These become pending redactions: proposed changes that only you and other admins can see. They stay on the Pending Redactions page until you act on them.
- Apply the redactions. When you're happy with what's marked, you apply the redactions. From then on, other users see only the redacted version. The file moves to the Applied Redactions page.
To see the file the way other users will, open it and turn on Preview with redaction.
Where to start
You can start redacting a single PDF in three ways:
- In the Data Room, right-click the file and select Redact.
- Select the file, then click the redaction icon at the top of the page.
- Open the file in preview. In the top-right corner, click the redaction icon.
To redact several files at once, see Redact many files at once.
To review all your redactions in one place, click Redaction in the left sidebar.
Ways to find what to hide
| Method | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Select text | Highlight words or lines in the document to redact them. | Specific sentences or figures. |
| Draw an area | Draw a box over any part of a page. | Signatures, logos, images, tables. |
| Search by keyword | Find every match of a word or phrase in the file. | Names or terms that repeat. |
| PII categories (AI) | AI finds personal and financial details for you. | Large files, many files at once. |
Each method adds what it finds to your pending redactions. Nothing is hidden until you click Apply All Redactions.
PII categories
PII means personally identifiable information: details that can identify a person, such as a name or addresses. The AI can look for:
- Full names
- Emails
- Phone numbers
- Addresses
- Zip/Post Codes
- Dates
- Company names
- Monetary amounts
- Bank account numbers
- Credit cards
- Tax IDs
- Passport numbers
- Drivers license numbers
Important: AI results aren't 100% accurate. Always review the pending redactions in each file before you apply them.
Redact many files at once
You don't have to open files one by one. Select several PDFs or whole folders, then click the redaction icon at the top of the page. You can redact up to 500 PDFs at a time, including the PDFs inside any folders you select.
In the window that opens, you can search for up to 20 keywords and any of the PII categories at the same time. When you're ready, click Scan for Review.
The Data Room scans the files in the background. Files with matches appear on the Pending Redactions page. Each file shows what was found and the number of matches. Files with no matches don't appear.
From there, you can apply redactions to selected files or to all of them at once. You can also remove pending redactions you don't want.
Important: A bulk scan skips password-protected PDFs, and PDFs over 100 MB. If one of these files isn't on the Pending Redactions page, it may never have been scanned. Check these files yourself.
Undo a redaction
You can remove applied redactions at any time, in two places:
- On the Applied Redactions page. Select one or more files, then click Remove Redactions. This removes all applied redactions from those files at once.
- In the file viewer. Open the file for redaction and go to the Applied tab. Remove redactions one by one, or click Remove All Applied Redactions. Redactions you remove one by one are marked as pending until you click Apply All Redactions.
Important: Removing pending or applied redactions can't be undone. You'd need to mark the content again.
Staging
If your Data Room uses Staging (a private area where you prepare files before others can see them), you can redact files there before you publish them. Use the Data Room / Staging switch in the top-right corner of the redaction pages to move between the two.