Redaction made easy for screen shots and PDFs

Topic

New Reply

WINDOWS 11 By Peter Deegan Both Windows and Mac have tools to remove (redact) details from screenshots and PDFs before sharing. As usual, there are so
[See the full post at: Redaction made easy for screen shots and PDFs]

3 users thanked author for this post.

fisher75, rc primak, lmacri

Reply | Quote

Replies

Hi,

Never leave the information incomplete, some users may not know how to open the windows snipping tool – from the Start menu, by pressing Windows logo key + Shift + S or by pressing Print Screen (PrtSc).

The best free tool to modify pdf files, as far as I know, is the Libreoffice Draw, it is really powerful and it’s free.

1 user thanked author for this post.

rc primak

Reply | Quote

Good point.  I focused on Redaction in this article.

The details of taking screen shots and shortcuts was in the first article https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/mastering-the-art-of-screenshots/

Cheers,

Peter Deegan

Reply | Quote

Redaction of info in a PDF is a lot easier and cleaner if you have and use MS Word.

With the PDF open in Word you can edit rather than black out the info.
Simply highlight and delete or replace text with non-info holder (username goes here).
Open a new blank document in Word.
Copy the edited (redacted) document with Crtl + A and Ctrl + C.
In the new document Select Paste > Picture or use the keyboard shortcut (press and release the following keys in this order Alt, H, V, U). This will paste the edited PDF as a screenshot (no underlying text or editing coding).
You can go to File > Info > Protect Document to remove any remaining identifying info before saving as a PDF.

HTH, Dana:))

Reply | Quote

Yes, however using Word you’re not really editing the PDF. Word tries to convert the PDF into a Word document. You’re editing a Word document not the PDF directly.

That’s not a small point. Word converted doc doesn’t always look the same as the original PDF nor will it, necessarily, when saved back to a PDF.  A lot depends on how the PDF was created in the first place.

Paste As Picture is a clever workaround for some situations – nice.

Peter Deegan

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

rc primak

Reply | Quote

Peter Deegan wrote:

Yes, however using Word you’re not really editing the PDF. Word tries to convert the PDF into a Word document. You’re editing a Word document not the PDF directly.

Yes I understand that Word converts the PDF, edits and then converts the document back to a PDF. The PDF does get edited, directly or thru conversion.

Peter Deegan wrote:

That’s not a small point. Word converted doc doesn’t always look the same as the original PDF nor will it, necessarily, when saved back to a PDF.  A lot depends on how the PDF was created in the first place.

I have found the warnings that Word will mess up a PDF and not save it properly to be greatly exaggerated for routine use. I have edited 100s of PDF with Word and posted many of these PDFs on this forum and other sites.  I have create a 446 page PDF complete with hyperlinks entirely with Word.  In all that hundreds of PDFs I have only found 2 that exhibited that action with Word and both of those had dropdown lists in the PDF (aka field type functions) and the only thing that did not match the original when saved was the dropdown lists were no longer there.  Word can’t save field functions to the PDF format.  The vast numbers of other PDF files I have encountered open, edit, and close just fine using Word. Maybe that would be a problem if I or a user gets a lot of those function type PDFs, but rarely do I come across those type of PDFs.

I definitely like Word over Edge to redact/edit a PDF. I never use Edge for anything.

HTH, Dana:))

Reply | Quote

I guess the “Get Old Bob” gnome is at work, since the computer knows I’m 80.  Or, the operations only work under Windows-11.  I’m using Windows-10 with latest updates applied.  I followed the directions for both Snipping and Pain; but could not get them to work.   In Snipping: didn’t get the tools line where the “Text actions/Redaction” icon is displayed.  In Paint: both the “outline” and “fill” choices remained grayed out-thus non operational.

Reply | Quote

Bob wrote:

In Paint: both the “outline” and “fill” choices remained grayed out-thus non operational.

Hi Bob:

I use MS Paint on my Win 10 machine and Outline and Fill are greyed out / disabled until I select a Shape (e.g., square, oval, etc.). Once a Shape is selected for drawing then Outline and Fill should be automatically enabled.

———–
Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4894 * Firefox v131.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24080.9-1.1.24080.9 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.11.133-1.0.5048 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783

1 user thanked author for this post.

Peter Deegan

Reply | Quote