Cross out text in a PDF (and why that is not redaction)

Strike through the words

Highlight PDFHighlight, underline, strike, notes. Free, runs on your device.Open

Cross out a clause in 3 steps

On our lease test file, clause 4 is being renegotiated and should show as struck for the next round.

1. Open the PDF. At /highlight-pdf the editor opens with the Mark tool already in hand; at /edit, press H or click “Highlight and mark text” in the tool strip.
2. In the options bar, choose Strike (the 4 choices are Highlight, Underline, Strike and Squiggle). Strike starts in red; pick another of the 8 colours if your review uses a code.
3. Drag from the first word to the last. The words that will be marked light up while you drag, line by line, so you see the result before you let go. Release, and the line is drawn.

Save with Ctrl+S. Each mark is 1 step in the Changes list and undoes with Ctrl+Z. To change a mark later, switch to the Select tool (V) and click it: the panel says “Selected · Strike-through” and offers its colour and Delete.

What a strikethrough is in the file

The mark is not drawn into the page. It is a strike-out annotation, a standard PDF object that sits on top of the page and records which words it covers, its colour and how it looks. getPDF saves each one with its drawn appearance and the flag that lets it print, so a viewer that only draws what it is given still shows it. On our invoice test file, one struck line added 672 bytes.

Because it is a standard annotation, review apps treat it as a comment: Adobe Acrobat lists it in its Comments list, which can be filtered by type, and Apple’s Preview lists marks under View, Highlights and Notes (both per their help pages, checked on 11 October 2026). Anyone who receives the file can click it and delete it, and the editor says as much when you select one: “Saved as a PDF annotation: other apps can show, change or remove it too.”

When crossing out is the right tool

Strikethrough says “this is struck, and here is what it said”. That is what you want when:

• negotiating a contract, where the other side must see which clause you propose to drop;
• correcting a list or a form you send back, where the reader should see the old value next to the new one;
• showing a superseded price or date, as a shop or a timetable does;
• reviewing a draft, where the author decides whether the words really go.

In each case the reader is meant to read the crossed-out words. That is the feature.

Crossed-out text is still there

A strike-out mark changes nothing in the text under it. We checked on our invoice test file: after striking “Invoice total: 1,190.00 EUR” and saving, a search for “1,190.00” still found it, and select all with copy still pasted it out whole. A screen reader reads it aloud without any hint that it was struck. Even Save flattened PDF, which draws the mark into the page so it can no longer be removed, leaves the text under the line as selectable, searchable text; we checked that too.

If the goal is that nobody can read it

Then crossing out is the wrong tool entirely, and so is a black rectangle drawn with the Shape tool, which hides the words from eyes and not from copy and paste. Use Redact PDF:

1. Open the file and press R for the Redact tool.
2. Drag a box over each thing that must go.
3. Save. The editor takes out everything under each box (characters, picture pixels, drawings, links, form fields), draws a black box in its place and tells you what it removed.

The privacy and protection guide covers the other places a name hides, such as the document’s properties.

If the clause should simply be gone

When there is no reader who needs to see the old words, do not mark them; delete them. Click the line with the Select tool and press Delete, and the words leave the page and the saved file. Remove text from a PDF covers the gap that leaves and how to close it.

What the Strike tool cannot do

It marks text that is text. On a scanned page there is none, and the editor says “There is no text there to mark” when you try; draw a line with the Shape tool (S, then Line) or run OCR PDF first. It has no thickness setting and no double strike. It marks whole characters along each line, so it cannot strike half a letter or a picture. And it never removes or hides anything, which is the whole point of this page. For highlighting, underlining and notes in the same review, see Highlight and comment on a PDF; for every other kind of change, Edit a PDF.