How to redact in Word document

This put up will present you how to redact in Word document on a Home windows 11/10 system. The redaction course of for a Word file helps defend privateness, stop knowledge leaks, and extra. You can also make your delicate or personal data inaccessible to others or take away it out of your Word document. Thus, others may have solely the data that you really want them to entry or use.

Is there a redaction device in Word?

Microsoft doesn’t provide a built-in or devoted device to redact in Word. Nonetheless, there are native choices or options in MS Word that assist redact a Word file (DOC or DOCX). These native options allow you to black out or white out textual content, substitute delicate knowledge (together with textual content and pictures), disguise textual content content material straight, and extra. You don’t want any third-party device to redact a Word document.

How to Redact in Word document

You can redact textual content in a Word document on Home windows 11/10 utilizing the choices listed under. Earlier than utilizing any of those choices, make a replica of your Word document, simply in case. The choices are:

1. Blacking out textual content in a Word document
2. Add a form to Word content material
3. Redact textual content in Word utilizing the Hidden Font Impact
4. Save the Word document as a picture
5. Redact Textual content in Word utilizing the Discover and Substitute device.

Let’s test all these choices.

1] Blacking out textual content in a Word document

When you might have to take a print of a Word file or focus on one thing with others with out sharing the digital copy, blacking out textual content in a Word document is a fairly good choice. You’ll be able to choose the textual content of your selection to stop it from being learn or seen and defend confidential data. The method of redacting textual content in a Word file may be carried out with the assistance of the Spotlight characteristic. Listed here are the steps:

1. Open the Word file
2. Choose the textual content (a line, phrases, or paragraph) that you really want to redact
3. Entry the House menu
4. Open the drop-down menu out there for the Textual content Spotlight Colour choice. This feature is current in the Font group in the Ribbon menu
5. Choose the Black shade in the drop-down menu. The textual content might be coated with a black strip
6. Crucial factor is to make sure the textual content shade can also be set to black. If not, then textual content content material might be seen simply. You should utilize the Font Colour drop-down menu to change the textual content shade to black (if not already)
7. Comply with the identical steps to black out different textual content content material
8. Save your Word file.

Now you possibly can print the document and share it with anybody you need.

To undo the redacting course of, open the Word file, and choose the textual content highlighted in black shade. Open the Textual content Spotlight Colour drop-down menu and choose the No Color choice.

Associated: Redact PDF utilizing free PDF redaction software program and providers

2] Add a form to Word content material

It’s another choice to redact in Word and is helpful for printing functions. The additional advantage of utilizing this feature is it helps to disguise textual content content material in addition to picture content material. All you might have to do is add a form to Word content material and choose black, blue, or some other shade for that form for redacting the content material. Listed here are the steps:

1. Open the Word file
2. Go to the Insert menu
3. Within the Illustrations group, click on on the Form choice to open a drop-down menu
4. Now you will note primary shapes, rectangles, and different shapes. For ease, choose a rectangle or rectangle with rounded corners form. Although you possibly can select any form you need
5. Press and maintain the left mouse button and drag it to the required space over a textual content content material or picture. The chosen form (or rectangle in this case) might be added. You can even transfer the rectangle anytime
6. Choose a method (shade for rectangle) from the Form Types group in the Form Format menu. This may cowl the chosen space
7. Repeat this course of to redact extra textual content or photographs
8. Press the Save button.

3] Redact textual content in Word utilizing the Hidden Font Impact

That is an fascinating manner to redact textual content in Word. You should utilize the built-in characteristic of Microsoft Word to present or disguise textual content. Choose the textual content you need to disguise > right-click > Font. Within the Font field, test the Hidden choice in the Results part, and press OK. Repeat this course of to disguise extra textual content content material.

To point out the hidden textual content, use the Present/Disguise choice in the Paragraph group in Ribbon. Alternatively, navigate to File > Extra… > Choices. Within the Word Choices field, choose Show > and test the Hidden textual content choice in the All the time present these formatting marks on the display screen part.

Whereas the choices coated above are certainly helpful, be aware that in case you share the digital copy of the document, anybody who is aware of how to undo the redacting can entry the delicate data. Nonetheless, when you’ve got to share its digital copy, you should utilize the choice given under.

4] Save the Word document as a picture

This technique is useful when you might have to share the digital copy of your Word file together with redacted textual content. As soon as you’re carried out redacting in Word (as defined in the 2 choices above), all you want to do is save the Word document as a picture. This fashion, it will be virtually not possible to fetch personal data from the redacted textual content and/or picture.

There are a number of methods to do it. For instance, you should utilize the Snipping Software to take a screenshot of a web page and save your Word file as a JPEG picture. Nonetheless, in this case, you might have to take screenshots of every web page individually which might be time-consuming.

One other manner to save a Word file as a picture is to convert Word to a multipage TIFF picture utilizing a free on-line device or desktop software. By doing so, you don’t have to save every web page individually. You can even convert a Word file to a scanned PDF and share it.

5] Redact Textual content in Word utilizing the Discover and Substitute device

The Discover and Substitute device is extra appropriate to redact textual content in Word as a result of the content material you need to disguise or defend is eliminated completely. The steps are:

1. Open a Word file
2. Press the Ctrl+H hotkey. The Discover and Substitute device will open
3. Within the Discover what: subject, enter the textual content you need to redact. It may very well be a single phrase, a number of phrases, line, and so forth.
4. Within the Substitute with: subject, enter the textual content (say abc) that you really want to present in alternative. To make it simpler to discover redacted textual content after the method, add the identical variety of characters as a alternative
5. Press the Substitute All button. All of the matched textual content might be changed
6. Repeat all of the steps to redact extra textual content
7. Save your Word file.

To make it safer, it’s best to take away document properties and private data, feedback and revisions, hidden textual content, and different objects out of your document. For this, use the built-in Document Inspector device of Word and take away all such data. Lastly, save the Word file.

Bonus: You can even use the Discover and Substitute device to substitute all photographs in Word directly

How do you black out phrases in Docs?

To black out phrases in Google Docs, open a Google Docs document. Choose the phrases or textual content in the document, and click on on the Spotlight shade icon. It’s current in the top-middle part of the toolbar. Choose the black shade in the colour palette. The textual content shade should even be black so the textual content content material received’t be seen. Use the Textual content shade menu to change the chosen textual content shade if it’s not set to black already.

Learn subsequent: Word document is opening black on Home windows PC.