Is the text under your black bars still in the Word file?
Highlighting text black in Word only hides it: select it, copy it, or change the colour and it is all there. Drop your .docx here to see what a reader could still recover, then download a fixed copy. Nothing is uploaded; it all happens in your browser.
Drop .docx files here
Word .docx only. Free: up to 5 files at a time. Hexloom Pro: unlimited, whole folders, zip.
Checks the four problems listed on this page; not a guarantee that a document is safe to release.
What it checks
- Text the same colour as its background: black text on black highlight or black shading (on the text, its paragraph or its table cell), white text on white, any colour pair that is practically the same. The fixed copy replaces each letter with a █ block.
- Deleted text kept as a tracked change: text deleted with Track Changes on stays in the file until the change is accepted. The fixed copy removes it.
- Hidden text and 1 pt text: text set to Hidden in Font options, or shrunk to 1 pt. The fixed copy removes it.
- Black shapes drawn over the page: a black rectangle placed over text. The text under it is still in the file; the tool reports the shape but cannot know what it covers, so delete the text in Word and check again.
What it does not check
- Colours that come from a Word style or theme rather than being set on the text, paragraph or table cell itself.
- Author names, comments and other metadata: use Doc Scrubber for those.
- Text inside images, and anything visible on the page: a name you forgot to cover is still a name.
- PDF, Excel, PowerPoint and the old .doc format. Password-protected files must be unlocked first.
Need more than 5 at a time?
Hexloom Pro is one subscription, $29 a year or $4 a month, that unlocks unlimited files per batch, whole-folder drop and a zip download here and in every Hexloom tool. See Hexloom Pro. Checking and fixing up to 5 files at a time stays free.
FAQ
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The page reads the file in your browser and builds the fixed copy there. Open your browser’s Network tab, drop a file, and you will see no upload of your file. Two small requests to hexloomlabs.com exist, and neither carries file data: when a batch is checked, the page sends one anonymous usage count (tool name and page path only); and for Pro, if you drop more than 5 files, a folder, or ask for a zip, the page asks whether you have a Pro subscription.
How do I redact in Word so it actually works?
Word has no built-in redaction. Replace the text itself (Find and Replace with a marker such as [REDACTED]), accept or reject tracked changes, then save and run the file through this checker. For anything that goes to a court or a regulator, convert to PDF and use a PDF redaction tool, then check the result there too.
Will the fixed copy still open in Word?
We test it by opening a fixed sample in LibreOffice and re-reading it, but we cannot test every file in every version of Word. Keep your original, and open the copy and read it before you send it.