Preview App: Redacted text still searchable?

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Level 1

4 points

Preview App: Redacted text still searchable?

Hi I've been trying to follow the steps to redact information from a document in the Preview app.

I've redacted the text I would like to remove via the in-app tool, I saved the document, closed and reopened the document, duplicated the already redacted document, and even restarted my computer. But when I "Cmd+F" for any part of the redacted text or even part of the text I haven't redacted that's immediately connected to the redacted space (eg/ XXX@gmail.com where XXX is redacted and @gmail is searched), I can still see the redacted text?

Is this a bug or is there a way to ensure that this text wont show?

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Apr 4, 2023 5:01 PM

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Answer 1

b_rice1378 Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 4, 2023 6:00 PM in response to b_rice1378

So I went back to the document and used the redacted tool on the duplicate over the already redacted text that was still findable at it looks like the tool just went over it with a bigger black box with X's and now it's working as expected.

Not sure how the redaction block is created/calculated, but thinking maybe when redacting text that has different fonts and sizes the black box doesn't reconfigure to account for some special case that occurs with different font families or formats? Definitely think this is a bug though and kind of a privacy risk.

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Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

56,046 points

Apr 4, 2023 5:19 PM in response to b_rice1378

I tested it and I can't reproduce what you are seeing. Can you confirm that you really are using the redaction tool? Does it create a black box with white X's in it?

However, PDF is really a crazy format. You are right to double-check it. It may not be possible with your specific document.

Maybe try to save an e-mail as a PDF and try to redact that. That should be a simple, generic PDF where the redaction works correctly.

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Answer 3

b_rice1378 Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 4, 2023 5:45 PM in response to etresoft

Yes can confirm that the black box has X's in it. I just tried with a separate document I made on Pages and exported it to PDF, then repeated the following steps above and it seems like it's working as expected in the new document. So I'm not sure as to why the two documents are behaving differently.

One immediate difference I could clock is that on the actual document I'm trying to redact from, I redacted over 120 entries of text over the span of 100 pages. I don't think this should have an immediate impact but something to note. Another thing to note is that only some of the entries I redacted are not showing up when I "Cmd+F" for the redacted text (roughly 90 entries show out of the 120 redacted text entries).

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Preview App: Redacted text still searchable?

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