How to redact or conceal sensitive information in Word
Kutools for Word
Redacting sensitive information in Word documents can be a tedious and error-prone task, especially when dealing with large documents. Whether you're a legal professional, a compliance officer, or anyone working with sensitive information, ensuring that private data is thoroughly redacted is crucial.
Kutools for Word offers an efficient and user-friendly solution with its newly introduced Redaction Tool. This tutorial will guide you through using this powerful feature to secure your documents effectively.
Why You Need the Redaction Tool
Why You Need the Redaction Tool
Redacting text manually in Word can be risky and time-consuming. You might overlook some instances of the text or make mistakes that leave sensitive information exposed. The Redaction Tool in Kutools for Word simplifies this process by allowing you to mark, clear, and apply redactions across your entire document with just a few clicks.
Enable the Redaction Tool
On the Kutools tab, click on the Redaction Tool button. And a toolbar will appear.
Tip: When you first open the Redaction Tool, you'll see a Help window that outlines the tool's application scenarios and provides an overview of its features. Just click the Close button.
Mark Texts for Redaction
Click the Mark button on the toolbar to open the Mark text to be covered pane.
Select the text you want to redact.
All sentences containing the selected text will be listed in the Mark text to be covered pane.
In the pane, choose where you want to mark the text, or click Select all sensitive information to mark all instances.
The tool will automatically detect and mark every occurrence of the selected text throughout the document.
To continue marking other sensitive content, place your cursor anywhere on the page and repeat steps 2 to 4.
✨ Note: For best results, place the cursor in a blank area of the page (do not highlight any existing text) before selecting the next sensitive text to redact.
Demo:
Clear Marks
Clear all marks through the document:
Click Clear All on the toolbar to remove all marked text throughout the document.
To remove specific marks that were added by mistake, follow these steps:
✨ Note: Before proceeding, make sure to place your cursor in a blank area of the page or exit Mark mode.
Select the text you want to unmark, or select the sentence containing the marked text.
Click Clear in the toolbar to open the Clear marked text pane.
In the pane, uncheck the text you no longer want to mark. To unmark everything, simply uncheck Select All Sensitive Information.
The tool will remove the mark from all instances of this text across the document.
Demo:
Apply the Redactions
Once you’ve marked all the necessary text, click the Apply button.
A Settings dialog will appear, allowing you to select the background color for redaction. After choosing a color, click OK to continue.
Next, a confirmation dialog will appear:
- Click Yes to save the document with the marked text and apply redaction.
- Click No to cancel the redaction process.
If you click Yes, a new document will be generated with all marked text fully redacted. The original and redacted documents will be opened side by side for easy comparison.
✨ Note: Meanwhile, the newly created document with marks has been saved in the same location as the original file, with “-Redacted” added to the original file name.
Close the Redaction Toolbar
If you want to close the Redaction toolbar temporarily, click the Close button.
Any marks you've made will remain in place until you use the Clear or Clear All buttons, allowing you to hide the toolbar without losing your work.
Above is all the relevant content related to the Redaction Tool of Kutools for Word. I hope you find the tutorial helpful. If you're looking to explore more Word features provided by Kutools, please visit the product page to access our extensive collection of feature tutorials.
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