Sorry, you read it right. That’s Office 2003 for you. A bit retro but the functionality lies with that version and I haven’t found one for other versions. Anyway, redaction is the act done by the feds or the military to blot out lines or portions of text that they deem confidential despite the Freedom of Information Act.

Well, plainly done, you can do this by using the highlight tool and use a black highlight on black text so when printed out, it would look redacted. However, if you’re trying to send the file electronically, then it’s still easy for the other party to just remove the highlight.

The Redaction Add-in (for Word 2003, for that matter). You will still be able to read your own redacted text but if you now export it in redacted format, people would just be seeing a black bar. Now you can censor out portions of your work and feel like a fed.

Download the Redaction Add-in here.