Data detectors are preventing redaction from working in Preview

Question

Data detectors are preventing redaction from working in Preview

I am trying to redact a PDF document in Preview on my Macintosh running Big Sur (the latest OS supported by my Mac). It generally works fine. Unfortunately, Preview thinks that Social Security Numbers are telephone numbers. So when I try to redact a Social Security Number, it offers to create a new contact with that telephone number but refuses to redact the number.

Is there any way to turn off Data Detectors in Preview on Big Sur? I would also be happy to turn off Data Detectors altogether, everywhere on my Mac, while I am doing this redaction, and then turn them back on when I'm done.

This is a really dumb problem to have. Redacting a Social Security Number is about the most basic thing. It's crazy that it doesn't work.

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Jan 22, 2023 2:00 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Andrew Shalit Author

Level 1

89 points

Jan 24, 2023 5:59 PM in response to Andrew Shalit

Here is a screen capture showing what happens when I try to redact numbers that are formatted as social security numbers (which happens also to be the format of US telephone numbers). Note that I have turned on redaction. I am able to redact text in the document. But when I attempted to redact the SSNs, something in the user interface decides that they are phone numbers and turns off the redaction tool.

I am running Preview Version 11.0 (1018.6.2) under MacOS Big Sur, which is the latest version of Mac OS available for my laptop. I don't know if this bug is present in later versions of MacOS.

I produced the PDF by writing a document in word, and then printing it, and from the print dialog saving a PDF.

Reply

Answer 2

Jeff_W.

Community Specialist

Jan 24, 2023 3:53 PM in response to Andrew Shalit

Hello Andrew Shalit,

When redacting content in a PDF, it shouldn't prevent you from redacting information, even if it's recognized as a phone number. To confirm, are you following the steps listed below and choosing the Redaction Selection to redact information? If not, make sure to follow those steps as they're specific to redacting content in Preview. You can also find these step outlined in the following article.

"In the Preview app on your Mac, click the Show Markup Toolbar button (if the Markup toolbar isn’t showing).
Use the tools in the toolbar to mark up the PDF (or use the Touch Bar)."

Annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac - Apple Support

Have a great day!

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 25, 2023 6:41 AM in response to Andrew Shalit

Because Preview is not a PDF Editor, it will not have an Edit menu > Substitutions > ✓ Data Detectors menu item that you could switch off. Apparently, this is something Microsoft is doing whether printing to or saving to PDF. Happens in Word 16.69.1 on Monterey 12.6.3 too and still uses Apple's PDFContext to generate a PDF v1.3 document.

On those data detector numbers, you can two-finger tap on it to bring up a secondary menu. That highlights the numeric string and then you click once on the PDF document to dismiss the secondary menu with the highlighted number remaining. With the Tools menu > Redact selected, you can now just drag over the highlighted number to perform the redaction.

Reply

Answer 4

etresoft

Level 9

50,304 points

Jan 24, 2023 4:30 PM in response to Andrew Shalit

Andrew Shalit wrote:

It's crazy that it doesn't work.

Works fine here.

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 24, 2023 6:01 PM in response to etresoft

Thanks for your response. I posted a screen capture video showing the problem happening on my Mac.

Reply

Answer 6

Jan 24, 2023 6:36 PM in response to Jeff_W.

Thanks for your response. I posted a screen capture video, below, showing what happens on my Mac. Please let me know if you see anything that I am doing wrong.

Reply

Answer 7

etresoft

Level 9

50,304 points

Jan 24, 2023 6:44 PM in response to Andrew Shalit

You seem to be clicking directly on a character. Position the cursor just before the character and drag right.

I can reproduce what you are seeing, but I have to work at it.

Reply

Data detectors are preventing redaction from working in Preview

Similar questions