How to Permanently Redact a PDF
Most PDF redaction draws a black rectangle over text that is still sitting underneath it, recoverable with a copy-paste. Omit removes the text itself, checks the result before writing the file, and runs entirely offline, no Adobe required.
In short
Omit removes a PDF's text objects rather than painting over them, then checks the output before writing it for whether the redacted value can still be recovered. A page that fails that check is escalated to rasterize-and-flatten, which destroys the text layer outright. A scanned page carrying no text layer goes through OCR instead, and the redaction box lands on the coordinates OCR reports for that word. The original file is never modified in any of those cases.
Most "redaction" is a black rectangle drawn over text that is still there underneath. Copy the page into a text editor, or open it in the wrong tool, and the value comes back out. That failure mode is behind most of the news stories about recovered redactions, and it happens because covering text is not the same as removing it.
Omit's PDF redaction removes the text objects themselves rather than painting over them, and it does not stop there. Before the file is written, the output is checked for whether the redacted value can still be recovered from what's left. If it can, the page is escalated to a stronger treatment: rasterize and flatten, which destroys the text layer outright, so there is nothing left to copy out even if the check that caught it had missed.
Offline, no Adobe required
This runs entirely offline. No upload, no API key, no Adobe subscription or plugin. It is a purpose-built redaction engine, not a script bolted onto a PDF editor, which is also why it does not depend on whichever PDF reader happens to be installed on the machine doing the redacting.
What happens to your original
The original file is never touched. Redaction writes a new file and leaves yours exactly as it was, the same rule that applies to every format in the product.
Where this gets used
Where this actually gets used: legal discovery documents, HR or medical records exported as PDF, financial statements, contracts, anything that has to leave the building without whatever was struck through still being readable underneath.
Scanned pages are a different case
One thing worth being precise about: this is about text that exists as text in the PDF. A scanned page that is really just a photograph with no text layer at all is a different case, and it goes through the same OCR path described for images: OCR finds the text, the detector finds the PII in it, and the box lands where OCR says the word actually is.
Measured the same way as the rest of this product: a real pass on a real file, and the check runs before the file is written, not after someone else finds the gap.