Redact Text in a Document on Windows Leave feedback

GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET lets you redact sensitive text in Word documents and other supported file formats. On Windows, you can use its Windows-specific build to integrate document redaction into Windows applications. This tutorial demonstrates how to create a .NET 10 console application targeting net10.0-windows, find a phrase in a Word document using a regular expression, replace the matching text, and save the redacted document. The same approach can be applied to other supported document formats.

A complete working project is available in the sample repository.

Start by creating a .NET 10 console application in Visual Studio or with the .NET CLI. Set its target framework to net10.0-windows to use the Windows-specific build of GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET. NuGet automatically restores the GroupDocs.Redaction.Net100.Windows assembly for this target framework. It includes Windows-specific dependencies, such as System.Drawing.

If your application needs to run on multiple operating systems, use the cross-platform net10.0 target framework instead. For details about supported platforms and framework requirements, see System requirements and Migration notes.

Create a Console App and select .NET 10.0 as the target framework. After the project is created, open the project file and set:

<TargetFramework>net10.0-windows</TargetFramework>

bash

dotnet new console -n WindowsSpecificRedaction -f net10.0
cd WindowsSpecificRedaction

Then set the same target framework in WindowsSpecificRedaction.csproj:

<TargetFramework>net10.0-windows</TargetFramework>

The project layout at this step is:

WindowsSpecificRedaction/
├── WindowsSpecificRedaction.csproj
└── Program.cs

Install GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET 26.10.0 using Visual Studio or the .NET CLI. This package provides the APIs required to load documents, find text using regular expressions, apply redactions, and save the results.

In Visual Studio, open Manage NuGet Packages, search for GroupDocs.Redaction, and install version 26.10.0.

bash

dotnet add package GroupDocs.Redaction --version 26.10.0

The package provides the Redactor class for loading and saving documents, RegexRedaction for applying redactions based on regular-expression matches, and License.IsLicensed for checking whether a valid license is applied.

Place the Word document in the project directory and name it document.docx. Configure the project to copy the input file to the build output directory:

<ItemGroup>
  <None Update="document.docx">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  </None>
</ItemGroup>

The sample document contains the phrase essential tool. The application finds this phrase, replaces the matching text, and creates a redacted output document. The original Word document remains unchanged.

Replace the contents of Program.cs with the following code:

C#

using GroupDocs.Redaction;
using GroupDocs.Redaction.Options;
using GroupDocs.Redaction.Redactions;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

var license = new License();
// license.SetLicense("your_license_path");

if (!license.IsLicensed)
{
    Console.WriteLine("The library is running in evaluation mode. Some limitations may apply.");
}

using (Redactor redactor = new Redactor("document.docx"))
{
    var regex = new Regex(@"\s+essential tool", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
    redactor.Apply(new RegexRedaction(regex, new ReplacementOptions(" [redacted]")));

    var saveOptions = new SaveOptions() { AddSuffix = true, RasterizeToPDF = false };
    var outputFile = redactor.Save(saveOptions);
}

License.IsLicensed returns false until SetLicense loads a valid license. Uncomment SetLicense and provide the path to your license file to run the application with a valid license. Without a license, a single process can open up to 25 documents. Saved documents contain a trial badge at the top of each page. For more information, see Evaluation limitations and licensing.

The regular expression \s+essential tool matches one or more whitespace characters followed by essential tool. The search is case-insensitive, so Essential Tool also matches. Each match, including the whitespace before the phrase, is replaced with [redacted].

SaveOptions.RasterizeToPDF is set to false, so the document retains its original Word format. SaveOptions.AddSuffix is set to true, so the output file is named document_Redacted.docx. See Save in original format for more information about saving documents in their original formats.

Apply returns a RedactorChangeLog containing the redaction status. Save can still create an output file when the redaction was not applied.

Open WindowsSpecificRedaction.slnx, or open the project file. Press F5 to debug or Ctrl+F5 to run without debugging.

Visual Studio uses the output directory as the working directory. The redacted Word document is saved to bin\Debug\net10.0-windows\document_Redacted.docx.

From the project directory:

bash

dotnet run

dotnet run uses the project directory as the working directory. The application reads document.docx from this directory and saves the redacted document as document_Redacted.docx alongside it.

Open document_Redacted.docx to verify the result. The phrase essential tool should be replaced with [redacted]. The original document.docx remains unchanged.

You can adapt this example to redact other phrases, patterns, or sensitive text in Word documents by changing the regular expression and replacement text.

Explore the following examples and documentation to learn more about document redaction with GroupDocs.Redaction. The GitHub projects provide sample applications for different platforms and programming languages.

You can run the complete sample to see how to redact Word document text using regular expressions and the Windows-specific build of GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET:

• Redact a Word document on Windows
• GroupDocs.Redaction for .NET examples
• GroupDocs.Redaction for Java examples
• GroupDocs.Redaction for Python via .NET examples

You can also redact sensitive information without installing a library or writing code. GroupDocs provides a free online document redaction application for processing documents directly in your browser.

Use the Free Online Document Redaction App to find and redact text and other sensitive content in PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, email files, and other supported formats.