Whiting out part of a PDF is the digital version of correction fluid: you cover something so it no longer shows. Done badly, it leaves a bright rectangle that draws the eye straight to what you were trying to hide. Done well, the page looks as if the covered part was never printed.
When whiteout is the right tool
- Removing a note, a stamp or a stray mark from a page.
- Blanking a field on a form so it can be filled in again.
- Hiding a section that is not relevant to the person you are sending it to.
- Clearing space before you add new text or a signature on top.
If what you want is different words in the same place, do not cover and retype. Edit the text instead, which removes the old words and sets the new ones in the same font.
How to white out part of a PDF
- Open the white-out tool and choose your file.
- Drag a box over the part you want gone.
- The box takes the colour of the paper around it, not pure white. Add as many as you need, and undo any of them.
- Download the document.
Why the box usually shows, and how to stop it
The paper is not white. Scans are off-white or grey, certificates are cream, letterheads can be tinted. A pure white box on a cream page is obvious. Matching the box to the surrounding paper, as PencoPDF does, is most of the difference.
The box is too big. A box that covers part of a border, a rule or a neighbouring line leaves a gap in it. Draw it just around what you want gone.
The page has a pattern. A flat box cannot reproduce a watermark, guilloche or photograph behind the text. For a line of text on patterned paper, editing the scan rebuilds the pattern behind the letters, which a flat box cannot do.
What whiteout removes, and what it only covers
This matters whenever what you are hiding is private.
- Real text under the box is deleted from the file in PencoPDF. It cannot be selected, searched or copied back out.
- Pictures under the box are only covered. That includes photographs, logos, and every word on a scanned page, because a scan is a picture. The original pixels are still in the file underneath the box, and someone who extracts the image can see them.
So on a normal PDF, whiting out a line of text removes it. On a scan, it only hides it. If you are hiding something confidential, redact it instead, which removes picture content too. Whiteout vs redaction explains the difference.