PDF Annotation and Redaction
- Mohamed Patel
Enabling PDF Redaction
iCasework now provides a fully featured PDF annotation and redaction tool. This allows PDFs to be annotated and redacted from the Documents tab of a case.
The tool can be enabled from within the Administration area. Go to:
Manage cases – Administration – General settings – General preferences
The new PDF feature can then be enabled by selecting the ‘Allow pdf documents to be redacted’ checkbox. Upon selection, some further options will be displayed.
The first option allows specific keywords to be specified so that these will always be marked for redaction.
The next option enables use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to utilise machine-learning to enhance the initial redaction of documents through AI based algorithms. You will need an AWS account to enable this option. We strongly suggest you consider implementing this feature – it will identify a wide range of entity names and identifiers and will save considerable effort when redacting large documents.
The final option can be enabled to provide a wide range of additional PDF document annotation features alongside basic redaction features in the toolbar:
PDF Redaction
The Documents tab will display a new sortable column indicating the redaction status – Redacted or Not redacted.
To use the redaction tool, click on the Redact link for the required document on the Documents tab of the case. This document redaction tool will open in a new browser tab.
Any items suggested for redaction will be highlighted in red.
Items can be de-selected. Left click the selected item and click on the Delete option that appears to remove the redaction.
To redact text, highlight the word or phrase and click on the text redaction option that appears.
This will highlight the text to be redacted
The redaction tool also supports area redaction – such as complete section of text or an image such as a photograph. Click on the redaction icon from the top menu and select the Area Redaction option.
Highlight the area to redact:
Selected text and areas can then be redacted by clicking on the Save icon from the top menu.
After pressing Save, the highlighted items in the document will now be fully redacted. However, saved redactions can subsequently be “undone” by selecting the Undo icon next to the Save button.
The redaction status of the document will update to Redacted (you may need to refresh your screen if redaction is carried out in another window). The original, un-redacted version can be viewed by clicking on the Open icon. The redacted version is accessed by clicking on the Redact icon (which will also allow for further redaction to be applied to the document).
Redacted documents will now also be available for selection when sending emails from the case. Click on ‘Select case document’ and any redacted documents will be available for selection.
If the iCasework Advanced Case Bundling feature is active, the redacted version of the document will also be available for inclusion when building a new case bundle.
Forwarding documents back into a case
Any document downloaded from a case (and subsequently edited) can be forwarded back into the case – simply by forwarding to your standard iCasework inbox email address. There is no need to put the case number in the subject line – the case will be derived from the document name. For example, download a PDF document from a case. Redact using your preferred redaction tool. Email the final version to your iCasework email address and the redacted version will be automatically added to the case.
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