Redact PDFs for real. Bates-stamp the production. Nothing leaves your computer.
Markout finds Social Security numbers, account numbers, emails, phone numbers and your own search terms, burns them out of the page, strips hidden text and metadata, and numbers every page — all inside your browser.
Drop PDF files here
or click to choose · text-based PDFs · batch supported
Try the sample settlement letter →
How it works
Open
Drop one PDF or a whole batch. Markout reads the text layer with pdf.js and lists every page in a viewer.
Find & mark
Built-in detectors flag SSNs, EINs, card numbers (Luhn-checked), IBANs, routing and account numbers, emails, phones, dates of birth and more. Add names or keywords. Click any box to toggle it, or draw your own.
Burn & stamp
Pages with redactions are re-rendered as images so the content under each box is gone, then an invisible text layer is rebuilt for everything you kept. Bates numbers and stamps are applied, metadata is cleared, and the PDF downloads.
What actually gets removed
Drawing a black rectangle in a PDF viewer hides nothing: the text is still there for anyone who selects it. Markout rebuilds the page instead.
| What | Black box in a viewer | Markout |
|---|---|---|
| Pixels under the box | Still present | Replaced |
| Underlying text (copy / search) | Still present | Removed; the rest stays searchable |
| Annotations, comments, links, form fields | Kept | Removed |
| Title, author, keywords, XMP metadata | Kept | Cleared |
| Bookmarks, attachments, hidden layers | Kept | Not carried over |
| Where the file goes | — | Nowhere. It stays in your browser tab. |
Smart detectors
SSN/ITIN, EIN, credit cards (Luhn), IBAN (mod-97), ABA routing (checksum), labelled account, policy, passport and licence numbers, emails, phones (US & international), dates of birth, street addresses, ZIP codes, IPs, VINs, URLs. Each one is a switch.
Search terms & regex
Add client names, company names or any keyword. Whole-word, case-insensitive by default. Pro users can add regular expressions for matter numbers and custom ID formats.
Bates numbering that behaves
Prefix, suffix, zero padding, start number, six positions, font, size, colour, optional white backing box. Numbering continues across a batch and a CSV log records the range for every file.
Header & footer stamps
"CONFIDENTIAL", "ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY", file names, dates, page counts — with tokens that fill in per page.
Still searchable
Redacted pages are images, but Markout rebuilds an invisible text layer from everything you did not redact, so OCR is not needed and Ctrl+F keeps working.
Rotated pages, crop boxes, batches
Landscape and rotated pages are stamped the right way up. Untouched pages are copied as-is so vector quality is preserved. Export a batch as one ZIP.
Pricing
Adobe Acrobat Pro is $19.99/month. Cloud redaction tools start around $19/month and ask you to upload privileged documents. Markout is $9 and never sees them.
Free
- All detectors, search terms and manual boxes
- True redaction + searchable text layer
- Bates numbering and stamps
- Documents up to 10 pages
- One file at a time
Pro PRO
or $49/year (save 55%)
- Unlimited pages
- Batch: many files, one ZIP, continuous Bates range
- Bates log and redaction log (CSV)
- Regular-expression search terms
- Use on 3 computers · email support
Secure checkout by Lemon Squeezy. Cancel anytime. License key arrives by email.
FAQ
Is this real redaction or just a black box?
Real. Every page that contains a redaction is re-rendered to an image with the boxes burned in, so the original content stream is not in the output at all. The invisible text layer is then rebuilt only from text that did not touch a box. Annotations, form fields, bookmarks, attachments and document metadata are not copied either.
Does the output stay searchable?
Yes, by default. Keep "searchable text outside boxes" on and Markout writes an invisible text layer from the original text positions. Turn it off for a pure image PDF.
What about scanned PDFs?
Scanned pages have no text, so the detectors find nothing — but you can still draw boxes manually and the page is rasterised with the box burned in. OCR is on the roadmap.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The page is static HTML and JavaScript hosted on GitHub Pages. There is no API behind it. The only network request Markout makes is to Lemon Squeezy to check a Pro license key.
How is Bates numbering handled across a batch?
With "continue numbering across files" on, the counter carries from the last page of one file to the first page of the next, in the order shown in the file list. The Bates log CSV records file name, page count, first and last number.
Can I review before anything is removed?
Yes. Every detection is drawn on the page as a box you can toggle. Nothing is changed until you click "Redact & download", and the original file on disk is never modified.
Which browsers?
Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on desktop. Large batches at 300 dpi need memory; 200 dpi is the default and reads cleanly in print.