Redacting a selection renders entire page blank  SOLVED

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JohnCLeBlanc
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Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by JohnCLeBlanc »

Hi,

I"m trying to redact some numbers off of a bank statement that is a screenshot of my bank account on a webpage. Adobe Acrobat v. 10 (10 years old) allows me to erase a selection of the image (e.g., sensitive numbers that I don't want others to see) but when I try this with PDF Xchange, it erases the entire image when I apply the redaction. I've attached two files; the original that shows a number under "Scotia Rewards" and the Acrobat version that shows the successful redaction of that number.

This is a critically useful feature for me since I have to submit expenses and I don't want others to see my personal finances. Can PDF Xchange behave as Acrobat does?
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PDF Xchange erases image if any part of it is redacted.pdf
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Acrobat allows redaction of part of image.pdf
(177.16 KiB) Downloaded 48 times
petepuma01
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by petepuma01 »

I was able to get the redaction to work properly on your sample if I ran the OCR Page(s) command on the Convert menu. I did the OCR, then marked the redaction and applied. Only the marked section was redacted.

Post OCR, some of the images (arrow drop downs, for example) become odd characters.

You could also try saving the screen as a PDF since that should recognize the text from the start. With your screenshot, the whole thing is one big image.
JohnCLeBlanc
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by JohnCLeBlanc »

Thanks for the suggestions.

OCR is a reasonable strategy though an extra step. I wonder if Adobe Acrobat does that automatically and that's why I was able to do it?

Saving as pdf doesn't really work because I will end up with a lot more text to redact :-(

That's why I use a screen clipper to just grab what I need. Do you or does anyone else know if there's a way to save a only part of a webpage as a pdf?
Sasha - Tracker Dev Team
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by Sasha - Tracker Dev Team »

Hello JohnCLeBlanc,

Well if you redact a stamp annotation (that you have in your file) - you'll find that Acrobat behaves the same way when placing and applying redaction over it:
image.png
In case of the other file - there is an Image in it - not Stamp annotation.

Cheers,
Alex
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david king
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by david king »

For your Acrobat PDF example, it appears that you took a snapshot (e.g., with Snip & Sketch) and created the document using Acrobat's "File > Create from Clipboard" function. The object in the resulting PDF is an image and the page size is determined from the snapshot dimensions and is non-standard, i.e., not letter size. Because the object in the PDF is an image, parts of the image can be redacted using the redaction tools either in Acrobat Pro or PDF-XChange Editor. (Note: The redaction tool is not available in Acrobat Standard.)

For your PDF-XChange Editor example, it appears you used "File > New Document > With Blank Pages" and then pasted the contents of the clipboard directly onto the blank page of the new PDF. The resulting object in the PDF is a stamp annotation rather than an image. The redaction tool needs the object to be text or an image to redact parts of the object. It will simply delete the entire stamp annotation if any part of the annotation is marked for redaction. Although PDF-Xchange does not appear to have a function to create a new PDF by pasting the contents of the clipboard, the equivalent results can be achieved by saving the contents of the clipboard to an image file (e.g., .png) on your desktop and then right clicking on the file icon and selecting "Open in PDF-XChange Editor" from the context menu. The resulting object in the PDF is an image (not a stamp) and parts of the image can be then redacted with the PDF-XChange redaction tool. If you want the screenshot saved in an image file on your desktop to be inserted into a blank standard page rather than have a non-standard page size, use "File > New Document >From Image File(s)". Drag the saved snapshot file from your desktop onto the "Image to PDF" file list and click "OK". The resulting image in the PDF can be resized if you don't want it to fit the page width.

Another alternative would have been to first paste your screenshot into Paint before copying it to PDF-XChange, redact the desired parts using Paint's eraser tool or by covering them with rectangles, and then copy the redacted screenshot back to the clipboard or an image file.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank  SOLVED

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, david king

Thank you very much for the clear answer to JohnCLeBlanc's request. I hope that this helps, as I could not have worded it better myself.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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JohnCLeBlanc
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Re: Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by JohnCLeBlanc »

Agreed. Super helpful. Sorry I didn't see this earlier.
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Radi - Tracker Supp
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Redacting a selection renders entire page blank

Post by Radi - Tracker Supp »

:)
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