Any .NET library for PDF Redaction?

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3.00/5 (2 votes)

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Guys,

Does any one knows good open source\third party .NET library to redact Pdf's for sensitive information.

I Google'ed for it but no one is of use. Lots of libraries have below limitation.
1) Can't redact pdf using Regex.
2) After redaction if we convert redacted-pdf to text then it shows sensitive information which is obviously not of use.

Thanks in advance :)

Posted 1-May-13 4:11am

ganesh.rit

Updated 1-May-13 4:35am

Kenneth Haugland

v3

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Kenneth Haugland 1-May-13 10:35am

Have you looked at iText?

ganesh.rit 1-May-13 11:00am

No... I am looking into how we can use itextSharp for pdf redaction... if you have any idea please let me know

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-May-13 10:36am

I think by "redact" you mean "edit". Please check with some English dictionary.
The question is really vague.
—SA

CHill60 1-May-13 10:40am

redact = posh word for edit!! :-) http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/redact[^]

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-May-13 11:02am

I know, I just thought it should be "edit", but Richard explained by another possible meaning below.
As in some languages a word like "redact" is used instead of "edit" (when there is no a word "edit"), I assumed it was the influence of OP's native language.
—SA

Richard MacCutchan 1-May-13 10:48am

Redact is used nowadays to mean obliterating sensitive information in documents that are made public. It was used on a daily basis a couple of years ago when all British MPs expense claims were published in the press.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-May-13 11:04am

Ah, got it. Thank you very much for pointing it out, I did not know. I though it was the influence of a different language, which often happens. I explained why I though so, above...
—SA

ganesh.rit 1-May-13 10:59am

Pdf redaction is facility though which we can redact pdf for sensitive information. Adobe provides some paid tools through which we can redact pdf's in acrobat reader. What I want here is programatically redact pdf's using .net library.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-May-13 11:05am

Ah, I got it, thank you. Please see my comments above explaining why I though it was a mistake...
—SA

sangitasojitra 26-Mar-14 11:36am

Ganesh,
I am also looking for some good redaction tool which redacts sensitive information from pdf and should not present after it is converted to text document.
Do you know if any tool provides same?
your help is appreciated a lot.
Thank you.
Sangita.

3 solutions

Solution 4

The only way I see this working is removing the text entirely and replacing it with black bar images.

As you're already found out, just drawing a black box over the text doesn't work as the text is still there, unprotected. All you have to do is convert the PDF to text to get it or open the PDF in some PDF editor and just remove the black boxes.

I don't know of any library that does this for you and I don't have any code samples to do this with any library. I think you're in uncharted ground here using free libraries.

Posted 26-Mar-14 6:07am

Dave Kreskowiak

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CHill60 · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01T04:38:00

Solution 1

This 3rd party tool definitely allows for regex http://www.gnostice.com/nl_article.asp?id=238&t=PDF_Text_Redaction_Using_PDFOne_NET[^] although it's not cheap

Posted 1-May-13 4:38am

CHill60

Comments

ganesh.rit 1-May-13 11:04am

Hi Chill60,

Thanks for your response,
I already tried PDFOne... but its not of use... first it doesn't succeed to redact everytime... if however succeeded and if we convert redacted pdf to text it shows redacted text which is obviously not of use

Thanks,
Ganesh.

CHill60 1-May-13 11:12am

Have you tried their support center with the not working every time issue?
On the redacted text showing - A lot will depend on how you are converting the pdf to text - again something for the Gnostice support guys

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-May-13 11:05am

My 5.
—SA

CHill60 1-May-13 11:06am

Thank you!

sangitasojitra 26-Mar-14 11:34am

Ganesh,
I am also looking for some good redaction tool which redacts sensitive information from pdf and should not present after it is converted to text document.
Do you know if any tool provides same?
your help is appreciated a lot.
Thank you.
Sangita.

CHill60 26-Mar-14 13:03pm

It would rather depend on how you are converting to a text file - whichever tool is doing that would need to be able to recognise the redaction OR do the redaction as part of that process. The Gnostice tool should be able to do that but as I said - it's not cheap http://www.gnostice.com/XtremeDocumentStudio_dot_NET.asp[^]

ganesh.rit · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-27T07:04:00

Solution 2

Using iTextSharp I am able to redact area of pdf knowing page and area of raster image pdf.

Posted 27-May-13 7:04am

ganesh.rit

Comments

Member 10070308 23-Jan-14 7:00am

Can you please share the code ? I want exactly the same thing.

ganesh.rit 24-Jan-14 0:30am

I drawn rectangle of black color over raster image pdf, where I know page and area to which i have to apply redaction. you can find code on internet to draw rectangle using iTextSharp.

Thanks