Plain Text and Rich Text

Philter Desktop redacts two kinds of plain and lightly formatted text documents:

• Plain text (.txt): simple, unformatted text, like a Notepad file.
• Rich Text (.rtf): a formatted-text format used by WordPad and many legal and records systems.

Plain text (.txt)

A .txt file is redacted directly: the sensitive information is removed from the text and the cleaned-up copy is saved as a new .txt file. There is no formatting, metadata, or hidden content to consider.

Rich Text (.rtf)

A redacted .rtf is rebuilt from its main body, so document metadata it carried (such as the author or title) is dropped automatically, any embedded objects (such as an attached spreadsheet or Word file) are removed so they cannot carry unredacted content into the output, and any reviewer comments (annotations) are removed rather than being merged into the text. The cleaned-up copy is saved as a new .rtf file that keeps the body's formatting.

Headers, footers, and footnotes

RTF redaction works on the document body. Content in other parts — such as headers, footers, and footnotes — may not be carried into the redacted .rtf, so review the result rather than assuming those parts came through. If a document keeps important information in headers, footers, or footnotes, save it as a .docx and redact that instead, which covers those parts. When Philter Desktop notices an .rtf with these parts, it flags the redaction for review (in the queue's Verification column, the watched-folder log, and on the command line).

For adding files to the queue, previewing, adjusting, verifying, and reporting on a redaction, see Redacting Documents.