The important column isn't price — it's whether the words are still in the file afterwards.
| Feature | FreePDFRedaction | Acrobat Pro | “Black box” tools | Word / Preview |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Removes the content from the file | ✓ | ✓ | ~ often visual only | ✗ text stays in file |
| Pattern-based PII detection | ✓ | ~ partial | ~ varies | ✗ |
| OCR for scans and photos | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Files never stored | ✓ in memory | ~ desktop/cloud | ~ varies | ✓ local |
| Nothing to install | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Free for everyday use | ✓ | ✗ | ~ limited | ✓ |
Comparison reflects typical behaviour of each category, not a test of every product. Manual methods and many general-purpose tools leave recoverable text under a black rectangle — always verify a redaction is permanent before sharing. Batch processing and an API are not currently offered here.
Whatever tool you use, you can check it in about ten seconds. Open the redacted PDF, select the page, copy, and paste into a plain text editor. If the text you removed appears, it was never removed — it was covered.
For scanned documents the equivalent test is to export or screenshot the page and read it: if the sensitive characters are still legible, the pixels were never destroyed.
Select the page, copy it, and paste it into a text editor. If the text is still there, it was never removed.