Has anyone found any open source software that will redact a pdf? By redaction, I mean when you cover sensitive data in a document with a black block, a bit like obliterating it with a black marker pen.
I guess you could open the PDF with OpenOffice 3.x (which is in beta now), delete the words you wish to redact and replace them with spaces with black background (necessary to prevent people downloading the files and getting to the hidden works if stored as say black characters on black background), and then save the file again as a PDF.
It is possible someone could automate this to provide in-line redaction editing.
I am not sure if this reply is exacly on target, but I did some resarch on this about a year ago. I found several resouces, including a document from the NSA on the subject. I just did a quick search and found a copy of the document at FAS. http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/nsa-redact.pdf
Thanks for the useful, promising leads. The Open Office conversion looks interesting, and you may be interested to know that Microsoft now have an Add-in for redacting Word 03 documents (doesn't specify any other versions), which can be found here:
