Text redaction in ms word

[mike_ash]

Hi All,

 

Is it possible to redact text in a word document so that it can be emailed, without the recipient being able to "undo" the changes. So, I have a document which has sensitive information redacted. So far we have taken a screen shot of the document and then sent that, just wondering if there is a better way for if there is a document with many pages?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

[TomHD]

just replace the text to be redacted with "REDACTED"?

[bald_pig]

just replace the text to be redacted with "REDACTED"?

 

This, and export as PDF.

[blueday]

The ICO has advice on redacting here: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/how-to-disclose-information-safely-removing-personal-data-from-information-requests-and-datasets/2013958/how-to-disclose-information-safely.pdf

[mike_ash]

Thanks for the replies, if someone has already been through a document and redacted the text by covering it with the "text highlighter" tool, so that it looks like it's been covered over, is there a way to "flatten" the document so this can't be undone. Also if the sensitive information is changed with text i.e. "redacted" or "xxxxxx". why would it then need to be exported as a pdf?

 

thanks

[bald_pig]

Thanks for the replies, if someone has already been through a document and redacted the text by covering it with the "text highlighter" tool, so that it looks like it's been covered over, is there a way to "flatten" the document so this can't be undone. Also if the sensitive information is changed with text i.e. "redacted" or "xxxxxx". why would it then need to be exported as a pdf?

 

thanks

 

Because word has versioning, so it's possible to have revision history stored in a word doc.

[Garacesh]

Thanks for the replies, if someone has already been through a document and redacted the text by covering it with the "text highlighter" tool, so that it looks like it's been covered over, is there a way to "flatten" the document so this can't be undone.

Not really. It's just black text with a black highlight. It may be effectively blanked, but it's functionally just altered formatting and easy to reverse.

Alternately, if format/layout is important, you could delete and replace the information with 'full block' characters (█), provided you're using a font that supports it, like Arial.

 

Also if the sensitive information is changed with text i.e. "redacted" or "xxxxxx". why would it then need to be exported as a pdf?

No version history, no older versions, no review tools, etc.