Adobe Acrobat XI - Manual (Page 380)

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Security
Last updated 1/14/2015
Search and remove text (Acrobat Pro)
Use the Search & Remove Text tool to find and remove words or phrases in one or more PDFs that contain searchable
text.
Note: The Search & Remove Text tool doesn’t search secured (encrypted) PDFs.
1 Choose Tools > Protection, and select the Search & Remove Text tool . (If you don’t see the Protection panel,
choose View > Tools > Protection.)
2 Specify if you want to search the current PDF or all PDFs in another location.
3 Do one of the following:
• To search for only one word or phrase, choose Single Word Or Phrase and type the word or phrase in the text
field.
• To search for multiple words, select Multiple Words Or Phrase, and then click Select Words. Type each word in
the New Word Or Phrase text field and click Add. You can also import a text file with the list of words or phrases
to search for.
• To search for a pattern (for example, phone numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, social security
numbers, or dates), click Patterns. Choose one of the available patterns. You can change the language version of
the patterns. (See
Select a different language version for patterns (Acrobat Pro) .)
4 Click Search & Remove Text.
5 In the search results, click the plus sign (+) next to the document name to see all occurrences of the word or phrase.
Then, select the occurrences you want to mark for redaction:
• To select all occurrences in the list, click Check All.
• To select individual occurrences, click the check box for each one you want to redact. Click the text next to a
check box to view the occurrence on the page.
• To mark none of the occurrences, close the Search window or click New Search to start over.
• To mark whole words or partial words (characters) for redaction, select the option under Redaction Mark
Options. For partial words, click Settings and specify the number and location of the characters for redaction.
Character redaction is useful if you’re searching for a pattern, like credit card numbers, and want to leave part of
the number visible for identification purposes.
6 If you selected occurrences that you want to mark for redaction, click Mark Checked Results For Redaction.
The items you selected in the list are shown marked for redaction.
Note: If you haven’t saved the file, you can select redaction marks in the document and press Delete to remove the
redaction mark. The redaction marks become permanent after you save the file.
7 To remove the marked items, click Tools > Protection > Apply Redactions, and then click OK.
The items aren’t permanently removed from the document until you save it.
8 If you want to search for and remove hidden information in the document by using the Remove Hidden Information
feature, click Yes. Otherwise, click No.
9 Choose File > Save, and specify a filename and location. If you don’t want to overwrite the original file, save the file
to a different name, location, or both.