How to redact every occurrence of a name in a PDF
Find and redact a name on every page of a PDF, catch variations like initials and surnames, and use on-device AI to spot names you didn't think to search for.
Updated · 2 min read
Do it now: free, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
Open Redact PDFThe short answer
Use Find and redact: type the name once and every match on every page is covered. Then turn on the optional on-device AI to catch names you didn't search for, and read the pages for anything both missed.
Three ways names get found
| Method | What it catches | What it can miss |
|---|---|---|
| Labelled fields | Names next to labels like Name, Account holder or Patient | Names in running text |
| Find and redact | Every match of what you type, on every page | Spellings and forms you didn't type |
| On-device AI | Names of people, places and organisations in sentences | Unusual or ambiguous names |
Used together, they cover far more than any one alone. The AI model runs in your browser like everything else, so the document still isn't uploaded.
Decide first whose names you're hiding. In a contract or a complaint you may want to hide one person but keep the company and the other party visible. Searching for that one person, rather than accepting every name the AI suggests, keeps the document readable.
Step by step
- Open the PDF in Redact PDF. Labelled names are highlighted straight away.
- Open Find and redact and type the full name. Every match on every page is covered.
- Search again for the parts on their own: the surname, the first name, initials, and nicknames.
- To cover several forms in one search, use a regular expression such as Sharma|Priya|P. Sharma.
- Turn on the AI name detection and review its suggestions. Reject any that aren't the person you're hiding.
- Draw boxes over signatures, which aren't detected automatically.
- Export and check the flagged results before downloading.
Places a name hides
- Email addresses like priya.sharma@example.com. These are detected as emails, but check they're accepted.
- Headers and footers repeated on every page.
- Possessives and hyphenations, such as a name split across two lines.
- File names and metadata. The exported PDF drops metadata, but rename the file too.
- Indirect details: a job title, a team name or a unique role can identify someone without their name.
Anonymising a CV? The Anonymize resume template and the guide on blind hiring cover photos, dates and schools too.
Questions
Does Find and redact work on scanned PDFs?
Scanned pages are read with OCR first, so detection works on them, but OCR can misread names. Check scanned pages by eye and draw boxes over anything missed.
Can I replace the name with something like [Client] instead?
No. Blur Document covers text with a solid, blurred or pixelated box. It doesn't insert replacement text.