Redaction Basics

Redaction types

GroupDocs.Redaction comes with the following redaction types:

Type	Description	Classes
Text	Replaces or hides with color block a portion of text within document body	ExactPhraseRedaction, RegexRedaction
Metadata	Replace metadata values with empty ones or redacts metadata texts	EraseMetadataRedaction, MetadataSearchRedaction
Annotations	Deletes annotations from document or redacts its texts	DeleteAnnotationRedaction, AnnotationRedaction
Images	Replaces specific area of an image with a colored box	ImageAreaRedaction

Apply redaction

Applying redaction to a document is done through Redactor.apply method. As a result, you receive RedactorChangeLog instance, containing a log entry for each redaction applied. The entry contains reference to Redacton instance including its options, status of the operation (see below) and textual descriptions when applicable. If at least one redaction failed, you will see Status == RedactionStatus.Failed:

final Redactor redactor = new Redactor("sample.docx");
try 
{
    redactor.apply(new ExactPhraseRedaction("John Doe", new ReplacementOptions("[personal]")));
    redactor.save();
}
finally { redactor.close(); }

All possible statuses are listed in this table:

Status	Description	Possible reasons
Applied	Redaction was fully and successfully applied	All operations within redaction process were successfully applied
PartiallyApplied	Redaction was applied only to a part of its matches	1) Trial limitations for replacements were exceeded2) At least one change was rejected by user
Skipped	Redaction was skipped (not applied)	1) Trial limitations for redactions were exceeded2) Redaction cannot be applied to this type of document3) All replacements were rejected by user and no changes were made
Failed	Redaction failed with exception	An exception occurred in process of redaction

For detailed information you have to iterate through redaction log entries in RedactorChangeLog.RedactionLog and check for ErrorMessage property of any items with status other than Applied:

RedactorChangeLog summary = redactor.apply( ... );
if (result.getStatus() != RedactionStatus.Failed)
{
	for (RedactorLogEntry logEntry : result.getRedactionLog())
    {
        if (logEntry.getResult().getStatus() != RedactionStatus.Applied)
        {
            System.out.println(logEntry.getRedaction().getClass().getName() + " status is " + 
               logEntry.getResult().getStatus() + ", details: " + logEntry.getResult().getErrorMessage());
        }
    }
}

Apply multiple redactions

You can apply as much redactions as you need in a single call to Redactor.Apply() method, since its overload accepts an array of redactions and redaction policy. In this case, redactions will be applied in the same order as they appear in the array. As an alternative to specifying redaction sets in your code, you can create an XML file with redaction policy, as described here.

final Redactor redactor = new Redactor("sample.docx");
try 
{
    Redaction[] redactionList = new Redaction[]
    {
          new ExactPhraseRedaction("John Doe", new ReplacementOptions("[Client]")),
          new RegexRedaction("Redaction", new ReplacementOptions("[Product]")),
          new RegexRedaction("\\d{2}\\s*\\d{2}[^\\d]*\\d{6}", new ReplacementOptions(java.awt.Color.BLUE)),
          new DeleteAnnotationRedaction(),
          new EraseMetadataRedaction(MetadataFilters.All)
    };
    redactor.apply(redactionList);
    // false, if at least one redaction failed
    if (result.getStatus() != RedactionStatus.Failed)
    {
        redactor.save();
    }
}
finally { redactor.close(); }

Metadata redactions Spreadsheet redactions