

Redact allows you to apply manual markups to Excel or .csv files in the Viewer. You can apply markups to specific parts of an Excel file including the sheet names, charts, objects, and headers and footers. An audit of the markups applied to each document can be viewed at any time to make tracking markups easy. You can also quickly locate any markups in a document and approve or reject them as part of your quality control process by using the Redaction Navigation card.
Note: Placing a markup on a document causes the coding layout to refresh. If you are editing a layout and place a markup, any unsaved edits to the layout fields will be lost. We recommend editing the fields on a layout and saving your changes before applying manual markups to a document.
If you would prefer to have markups applied automatically, see Automated spreadsheet markup project and Automated spreadsheet propagation.
We recommend running the Prepare Excel for Redact mass operation, formerly known as the Unhide Excel Content mass operation, on all Excel documents before applying markups with Redact. This preparation is done to ensure data is not lost after the markups are applied and also to prevent information that is covered by markups from being restored by third parties.
To prepare Excel documents:
Excel files must be prepared for redaction prior to markup application. This preparation is done to ensure data is not lost after the markups are applied and also to prevent information that is covered by markups from being restored by third parties.
When you apply the first markup to an Excel file, the following will occur:
To learn more about which file types are compatible with Redact, see Redact supported file types.
Since .csv files are text-based, they function differently than Excel files. A .csv file must display in table format in the Native Viewer before redaction options appear in the right-click menu. Only text or cell content redactions can be applied to .csv files.
Redact supports single and double quote characters as qualifiers.
The following delimiters are supported for .csv files, in order of highest to lowest priority:
If no delimiter is found, the .csv file will display in a single column. Redact provides warning messages that indicate which .csv files failed to match a delimiter to help you troubleshoot.
Note: If you apply a markup to a cell where the text overflows into empty neighboring cells, just as in the native application, the markup does not also overflow into empty neighboring cells. However, when the document is produced and the markup is burned in, the text from the original cell no longer overflows and is completely hidden by the markup.
You can apply redactions to a single cell or multiple cells by doing the following:
Markups can be applied to many different elements of an Excel file as needed.
Note: If you apply a markup to a cell where the text overflows into empty neighboring cells, just as in the native application, the markup does not also overflow into empty neighboring cells. However, when the document is produced and the markup is burned in, the text from the original cell no longer overflows and is completely hidden by the markup.
You can apply markups to a single cell or a series of rows or columns by doing the following:
For your convenience, you can rapidly apply the same markup to a single cell or a series of rows or columns by doing the following:
You can also edit the text of a single cell on-the-fly with this markup option. When a cell content redaction is applied, background colors, patterns, and borders from the selected cell will be maintained. Additionally, the font, font size, and color of the first word in the cell will be maintained in the redaction and any other fonts, font size, or colors in additional words will not.
To edit the contents of a single cell using a cell content redaction, do the following:
The name of a sheet within an Excel file can be redacted if it contains sensitive information.
To redact the name of a sheet, do the following:
To apply a redaction to a chart, do the following:
To apply a redaction to a comment, do the following:
Headers and footers in Excel files are not visible in the Viewer. However, you can apply redactions to them by doing the following:
Excel files may contain a variety of objects including:
You can apply a black redaction to these objects, by doing the following:
If markups have been applied to one or more documents, you can change all of the redactions to highlights or vice versa using the Convert Spreadsheets Markup mass operation. To learn more visit, Convert Spreadsheets Markup.
You can either select an entire markup or portions of a markup to remove it and restore the data that was hidden underneath the markup. Inverted markups only removes markups from the selected areas, it does not apply any markups to other portions of a document. Inverting markups also excludes areas of the document from branding. The ability to invert markups replaces the revert markups feature.
Inversions are recorded in the Redact Spreadsheet Markup Navigator as having the Inverse value for the Markup Type field. This makes inverted markups easy to find within a document. Alternatively, you can also apply inverted markups automatically using a Redact project.
To apply an inverted markup:
Select either the desired cell, the desired row or column, or click and drag your cursor to select the area with a markup that you would like to redact. Only cells that have markups will be inverted and cells without markups will be unaffected by this process.
Right-click on the highlighted area and hover your cursor over Redact in the right-click menu and select Invert Selection.
The selected markups, whether applied manually or by a Redact project, are removed from the document.
Optionally, you can review inverted markups in the Redact Spreadsheet Markup Navigator. You can also remove an inverted markup to restore the previous markup by clicking the Reject icon in the Accept/Reject column.
The following options are available to help you conveniently navigate Excel documents using your keyboard:
Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
---|---|
Page up / Page down | Scroll up or down one screen length in the document. |
CTRL+End | Select the bottom-right cell and move it into view. |
CTRL+SHIFT+End | Extend the current selection of cells to the bottom-right cell. |
CTRL+Home | Select the top-left cell and move it into view. |
CTRL+SHIFT+Home | Extend the current selection of cells to the top-left cell. |
Arrow left / up / right / down | Move the current selection left / up / right / down by one cell. |
CTRL+Arrow left / up / right / down | Move the current selection left / up / right / down by one cell. |
CTRL+SHIFT+Arrow left / up / right / down | Extend the current selection left / up / right / down. |
Tab | Move the current selection to the right by one cell. |
Shift+Tab | Move the current selection to the left by one cell. |
CTRL+A | Select the entire spreadsheet. |
CTRL+Shift+Space | Select the entire spreadsheet. |
CTRL+Space | Extend the current selection to include the full columns. |
Shift+Space | Extend the current selection to include the foll rows. |
After markups have been placed, perform quality control on documents before they are produced. To learn more about how to do this using Redact, visit Reviewing markups to ensure accuracy.
When a spreadsheet document is prepared by Redact, there are changes made to the native file to facilitate markup application. The changes include unhiding hidden columns, rows, and sheets. By the end of the preparation process, the original document is backed up to an RDO and the native is replaced with the flattened document.
If you would like to validate what content was previously hidden in a spreadsheet file, you can use the Open Original Native button to compare the document both before and after Redact preparation.
To access the original native file directly from the Viewer:
To download a copy of the native file without any markups, click on the document actions menu and select Download document native.
Click the Download Marked Up File button to download a copy of the native file with the markups applied in the Native Viewer.
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