Before sharing a contract screenshot or a PDF, you want to hide an ID number or account number — a common approach is dropping a solid-colored rectangle over it. That genuinely works for a "sharing a screenshot" scenario, but there's one critical distinction worth being clear on: visually covering something is not the same as deleting it.

What visual covering actually does

Drawing a solid-colored rectangle (usually black or white) over sensitive information with the "Rectangle" tool makes that content invisible when the file is opened, viewed, or printed normally. For "sharing a quick screenshot with a coworker to show the format," this is entirely sufficient.

Why this isn't "secure deletion"

A rectangle is just a new layer placed on top of the original content — the underlying text or numbers are still fully present inside the PDF file, just visually obscured. If someone opens the file in a reader that supports text selection, selects that region, and pastes it elsewhere, the "hidden" original text can very much come back out, because the underlying text object was never actually removed.

What to do when you genuinely need secure redaction

If a file will be uploaded somewhere public, or a recipient might deliberately try to recover covered content (a publicly released legal document, a media report's supporting image), use a dedicated "Redaction" tool instead — one that genuinely deletes the underlying text and image data rather than just layering a cover over it. Many professional PDF tools (Adobe Acrobat Pro, for instance) offer this as a specific feature.

When a rectangle cover-up is enough

LocalPDF's Rectangle tool handles a quick visual cover-up well, but for anything headed for public release or an untrusted recipient, use a dedicated redaction tool instead of relying on a colored box.

Now that you know the difference between covering and deleting, use it with confidence.

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