If you think blacking out information in Microsoft Word  using the highlighter and then saving it as a PDF will hide your sensitive data, you are mistaken.   A quick copy and paste into notepad, will reveal that the blacked out information is still available.

I wrote about how to properly redact a PDF document, but I just found a handy redaction tool for MS Word 2007.  It is not an official Microsoft product, but it works great.  Once downloaded and installed, the tool  appears under the tab “Review”.  Highlight the information you’d like to redact,  click on “Mark” and continue through your document marking everything you want blacked out.   When you are finished selecting and marking,  click on “Redact document.”  Your sensitive data will be inaccessible.

Word 2007 Redaction Tool

If you share documents often, then you will likely know the word “Redaction.”   Colloquially, redaction is blacking out  sensitive information on a document.  Adobe Acrobat Pro has a redaction tool built in, found under the “Advanced” tab, which makes it easy to select and highlight the data you want to hide; however,   there is a well known and compromising glitch.  Even if the data is blacked out via redaction, if the document is merely saved, the hidden data could be revealed by copying and pasting said data into a new document. Not so bueno!

If redaction is a daily part of your work regimen, then you are probably utilizing a tool like Redax to properly redact data.  However, if you only utilize this function on occasion,  then know that you must first save the document as a TIFF – turning the document into an image ensures the  blacked out data cannot be retrieved.  Next, save the TIFF version  as a PDF. Your blacked out content will finally be embedded in the PDF.

For more information, here is an informative, albeit verbose article:

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