Sanitize a Single PDF or Batch

Applies to: All editions; available profiles and custom options vary by edition

Prepare the batch

  1. Add the required PDFs or folder tree.
  2. Check the documents that should be included.
  3. Run Analyze and review the findings, or allow PDFSanitize to analyze missing files automatically when sanitization starts.
  4. Select the appropriate profile or review the permitted custom options.
  5. Confirm whether automatic verification and SHA-256 calculation should run.

Start sanitization

Select Sanitize. PDFSanitize processes the checked documents in sequence.

If selected PDFs have not been analyzed, the application offers to analyze the missing files first. If any required analysis fails, sanitization is not started for that batch request.

Pre-sanitization checks

Depending on the selected PDFs and policy, PDFSanitize can warn about:

  • Existing digital signatures that will be invalidated;
  • Catalog name trees or tagged PDF structures that may not be preserved completely in Preserve Quality mode;
  • Maximum Assurance reconstruction of every page;
  • Selective reconstruction required to remove hidden or off-page text.

Treat these prompts as part of the review process rather than routine dialogs to dismiss automatically.

Processing each document

For an eligible PDF, PDFSanitize:

  1. Creates temporary working files;
  2. Applies structural sanitization or reconstructs pages according to the selected mode;
  3. Applies structural sanitization to the resulting document again;
  4. Reopens and validates the final PDF structure;
  5. Calculates requested hashes;
  6. Copies the final result to a unique sanitized output path;
  7. Runs verification automatically if enabled.

Encrypted documents in a batch

An analyzed encrypted PDF is skipped and marked Encrypted – skipped. It does not become a sanitized output.

After processing

The first processed session is selected and the Verification tab is displayed. Review the status for every selected PDF, not only the first row, and investigate any Sanitization failed or verification failure before sharing outputs.