Could be something as described in:
https://helpx.adobe.com/es/acrobat/using/removing-sensitive-content-pdfs.html
Or even better, the issue is, while writing a report for internal (within the organisation) use, at some point there could be a need to make it available to public, though with some sensitive information removed (or blocked). For some reports already exported (and signed) I have recomended a solution mentioned in the link above, but for the new reports that are being made we have given instructions to users to these technics:
- Use conditional text, so there will be a variable with values 1 or 0, if it is 1 text will show, if it is 0 alternative text will show (for example “* * * * *” instead of “hello”).
→ Main advantage: you can use more than one variable to control which text is displayed and which alternative text is, a lot of control.
→ Disadvantage: time consuming, have to set it up for every text, and not very “user friendly”. Have to use hidden text for the variable, not straight forward. - Mark sensitive words you want to censor with an alternate style (for example a cloned style of the standard) then when exporting to pdf, change the format of the style to something meaningfull (highlightng) and make use of advanced search technics and regular expresions so the specifically formatted text gets substituted by same amount of “*”.
→ Advantage: it works.
→ Disadvantage: you need to remember to mark with the style and then change it, eventually there is a need to duplicate as many styles as needed if the words you want to censor are written in different areas (so parent styles) within the document. Also the user must lean regular expression patterns, and advanced search and replace technics, not so user friendly. - Plain and simple search and replace, so for instance, a passport number or a Name, Surname, Address… etc… any word you want to censor, could be easily be searched and replaced for any string that hides it “* * * * * *” or else.
→ Adv: easy
→ Disadv: in large documents with many different words it is kind of “manually” feeling and can lead to mistakes. - Also we have instructed users to use “version control” so they can get the uncensored document back or use the censored one, instead of saving to versions of the same document. And to use “control of changes”, notes and other technics to get track of the censored or removed text.
So, I think I have expressed my question, feature request (or extension) kind of clear, in any case, I can make an effort to explain it clearer.
I was thinking of a feauture (extension) so while writing the document words or string of text could be easily marked (right click button and option, keyword combination) to be censored later, also let which kind of censor to apply (substitue characters with specific simbol ex: “*”, or gray out, black out, etc…), keep track of censored text, search in the document for similar text that have been unmarked, for instance, if I have marked 123456 (passport number) as sensible text to be censored, it will be nice to check if that pattern is in some other part of the document and unmarked, so it checks and tries to alert to posible mistakes (forgot to mark).
Also, the censured report could/should have an option to add a watermark to every page, so it is noticed that it is a censored document version from a full document with all the info in it.
That’s about it, I know I should maybe try to start an extension about this… maybe, but I need to get the programming skills to do so and also first thing first, make it public so if anything is out there similar to this, maybe you can point me on the right directions.
Thanks!
to the left and, karma permitting, upvote it. If this resolves your problem, close the question, that will help other people with the same question.