How to white out a PDF on a Mac

Method 1: White out a PDF in Preview

Preview comes with every Mac, so this costs nothing and needs nothing installed. Menu names move about a little between macOS releases, but the tools have been in the same place for years.

1. 1

   Open the PDF in Preview and show the Markup toolbar

   Double-click the PDF, then choose View > Show Markup Toolbar, or click the pen-tip button at the top of the window.

2. 2

   Draw a rectangle over the text

   Click Shapes, pick the rectangle, and drag it over the words you want gone. Use the blue handles to resize it.

3. 3

   Make it white with no border

   With the rectangle selected, set Fill Color to white and set Border Color to white or none, so no outline shows.

4. 4

   Type over it if you need to

   Click the Text tool to add a replacement, then use Text Style to pick the font and size.

5. 5

   Save a copy

   Choose File > Export as PDF so you keep the original untouched.

It works, but there are three catches. The fill is flat white, so on a scan, a tinted letterhead or off-white paper it shows as a bright patch. The replacement text is in whatever font you pick, which rarely matches the document's own. And the rectangle is an annotation sitting on top of the page: the original words are still underneath, and anyone who opens the file in a PDF editor can select the box and delete it.

Method 2: Delete the text instead of covering it

If the PDF has real text (most PDFs exported from Word, Pages, Google Docs or a design app do), you do not have to cover anything. Remove the text from the PDF directly: the line is rewritten without the words, in the document's own embedded font, and the gap is filled with the colour sampled from the page behind it, so tinted paper does not end up with a white patch.

This runs in Safari, Chrome or Firefox on your Mac. The file opens on your device and is never uploaded.

1. 1

   Open the PDF in the editor

   Drop the file into the white out PDF page. It loads in your browser tab.

2. 2

   Click the line and delete the words

   With Select, click the line and delete or retype what you need. The paragraph re-wraps to close the gap.

3. 3

   Or cover an area with Rectangle

   For a stamp, a logo or a scan with no real text, pick Rectangle and drag over it. On the white out page the box fills with the colour of the paper around it, and follows that colour if you move it.

4. 4

   Export the PDF

   Editing is free. Downloading needs a free account and starts at 99p for your first week.

Check that the text has really gone

Whichever method you use, test the exported file before you send it. It takes ten seconds:

• Open the new PDF and press Cmd+F. Search for a word you whited out. If it is found, the text is still in the file.
• Press Cmd+A, then Cmd+C, and paste into Notes. If the covered words appear in the paste, they are still there.
• Try clicking the white box. If it selects and moves, it is a removable annotation.

If the words are still in the file and that matters (a name, an account number, anything confidential), whiting out is the wrong tool. Redact the PDF instead, which rebuilds the page without the content underneath. Our guide on whether white out removes text from a PDF explains the difference in more detail.

Which method should you use?

Questions people ask