Sanitize PDF
Remove hidden data, scripts, and potential threats
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About Sanitize PDF
Removes active and hidden content — embedded JavaScript, launch and submit actions, embedded files, and metadata. What remains is the visible document with the machinery stripped out.
The scan and the clean-up both run in your browser, so a document you already distrust is never uploaded anywhere — including to us.
How to use Sanitize PDF
- Load the suspect or incoming document.
- Review what the tool reports finding — scripts, actions and embedded files are listed.
- Sanitise.
- Download the cleaned document and check it still renders as expected.
On a production
A PDF that arrived from outside the production and is about to be forwarded to the whole crew. PDFs can carry scripts and auto-actions, and the crew's machines are a mixture of everything. Sanitising before redistribution is cheap insurance.
Frequently asked questions
- How is this different from Remove Metadata?
- Remove Metadata clears the descriptive fields only. Sanitise also strips executable content and embedded files — a broader clean-up aimed at safety rather than privacy, though it covers the privacy case too.
- Will it break an interactive form?
- It can. Forms with validation or calculation scripts lose that behaviour, though the fields remain fillable. If the form needs its logic, sanitising is the wrong tool for it.
- Does this make any PDF safe?
- It removes the common active-content vectors, which addresses most of the practical risk. It is not a guarantee against a defect in a specific reader, so it complements keeping your reader updated rather than replacing it.