Supported formats at a glance
RedactorBuddy currently supports six input formats. All formats produce a clean text-based output with PII removed and numbers intact.
Image-based PDFs not supported
RedactorBuddy does not perform OCR. If your PDF was created by scanning a physical document (i.e., it contains images of text rather than a text layer), it cannot be processed. You'll see an error message if this is detected. Convert to a text-layer PDF first using Adobe Acrobat or a similar tool.
Format details
Preserved
- All text content
- Numbers, percentages, currency amounts
- Paragraph structure
- Tables (converted to text)
- Headings and section labels
Stripped / changed
- Images and graphics
- Fonts and formatting
- Metadata (author, creation date)
- Hyperlinks
- Embedded files
Output format: .txt. The output is plain text — not a redacted PDF. If you need to preserve layout, copy the redacted text back into your original template.
Preserved
- All text content
- Numbers and calculations
- Heading hierarchy
- Bullet and numbered lists
- Table content (cell values)
Stripped / changed
- Formatting (bold, italic, color)
- Images and charts
- Comments and track changes
- Document metadata
- Headers and footers
Output format: .txt. Note: document headers and footers are processed for PII but appear inline in the output, not in their original position.
Preserved
- All cell values (text and numbers)
- Column and row structure
- Sheet names
- Numeric values and formulas results
Stripped / changed
- Formulas (output is result values)
- Charts and pivot tables
- Cell formatting and colors
- Comments
- Named ranges
Output format: .csv (one sheet per file, or all sheets concatenated). Multi-sheet workbooks: each sheet is processed independently; select which sheets to include in the review panel.
Preserved
- Column headers
- All numeric values
- Row structure
- Delimiter and quoting style
Stripped / changed
- PII values replaced with
[REDACTED]
- Partially — only the PII portion of a cell is replaced, not the whole cell
Output format: .csv (same structure as input). CSV is the format with the best structure preservation — column headers and row layout are maintained exactly.
Preserved
- All non-PII text
- Line breaks and whitespace
- Numbers and special characters
Stripped / changed
- PII text replaced with
[REDACTED]
Output format: .txt. No structure loss — plain text in, plain text out.
Preserved
- Text content inside tags
- Numbers and amounts
- Table structure
- Heading hierarchy
Stripped / changed
- Inline CSS and JavaScript
- Images (src attributes removed)
- External resource links
- Form inputs and values
Output format: .txt. HTML is parsed to extract text content only; the output is not an HTML file. Useful for exported web reports or email bodies saved as HTML.
What is always preserved
Regardless of format, RedactorBuddy never redacts these categories — they are marked as INFO and excluded from redaction:
- Monetary amounts — dollar values, percentages, exchange rates
- Account categories and labels — "Revenue", "Net margin", "Q3", "Operating expenses"
- Dates used as financial periods — "Q3 2024", "fiscal year 2023", "YTD"
- Industry terminology — financial jargon is never flagged as PII
Tip
If a number is being incorrectly flagged, check whether it falls into a pattern that resembles a phone number or account number. You can add a custom exclusion pattern in
Settings → Custom patterns → Exclusions to prevent a specific format from being detected.