Acrobat 9 introduced several new redaction enhancements, including pattern-based redaction. Using this feature, it is easy to find and redact:

• Social Security Numbers
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Dates
• Credit card numbers

The five "patterns" listed above are not very comprehensive, especially if you are Canadian!

There is no out-of-the-box there is no support for Canadian Social Insurance Numbers and Postal Codes.

Fortunately, it is possible to add your own patterns with a bit of work. In this article, I'll discuss how to create and add your own patterns.

If that's too geeky for you, at the very end I've included an already customized Redaction pattern file that is ready to go for Canada.

Regular Expressions and Redaction Patterns

Acrobat takes advantage of Regular Expressions— often abbreviated as REGEX— to find patterns. A regular expression is a code pattern which describes the attributes of the text we want to find.

For example, you may need to find uniquely patterned account numbers in a banking fraud case, and mark all of the account numbers across many documents.

In the example below, the account numbers used in case documents follow a regular pattern of three alphabetic characters followed by three digits.

The REGEX for the above would be: \D\D\D\d\d\d

The above pattern would find ABC123, but not 123ABC, A12345, etc.

Many IT folks, especially those with a UNIX background, are familiar with regular expressions and can do them in their sleep.

I'm just not that geeky. I need some help.

RegexBuddy to the Rescue

RegexBuddy is an inexpensive ($39 US) Windows utility that helps with building regular expressions. It's a small download and installs in seconds.

RegexBuddy helps in three ways:

1. Offers a visual interface for building regular expressions:
   
   
2. Allows you to test regular expressions to see if they work:
   
   
3. Includes a library of pre-built expressions for various postal codes, national IDs, VAT country codes and so on:
   
   
   

RegexBuddy includes a well-written help file that will help you get up to speed.

Once you create and test the REGEX, you are ready to add it to Acrobat.

Where does Acrobat store the patterns?

Acrobat stores redaction patterns in an XML file. XML is a lot like HTML, but more structured.

You can edit the file in a text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).

Here's what we will do in this section:

• Find the right file to edit
• Make a backup of it (just in case!)
• Copy a block of text in the file and move it to the end
• Fill in and change various blocks for the new redaction pattern.
  
  

Find the File and Make a Backup Copy

1. Quit Acrobat if it is open.
2. Find the search pattern file:
   WINDOWS
   

   \Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\ Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Preferences\Redaction\ <locale>\SearchRedactPatterns.xml
   
   MAC OSX INTEL
   /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Acrobat//9.0_x86/
   Redaction/<locale>/SearchRedactPatterns.xml

   
   

   Can't see Files on Windows? Go to the Control Panel Choose Folder Options Click on the View tab Find Hidden Files and Folders in the list and double click to open it Enable "Show hidden files and folders

3. Make a backup copy of the SearchRedactPatterns.xml file.
   e.g. Rename the backup to SearchRedactPatterns.bak
4. Right-click on the SearchRedactPatterns.xml file and choose Open With—>Notepad

Editing the Pattern File

1. Open SearchRedactPatterns.xml in a text editor if you haven't already.
2. Scroll down to find Entry 4:
   
   <set name="Entry4">
   <str name="displayName">
   <val>Email Addresses</val>
   </str>
   <str name="regEx" translate="no">
   <val>([a-zA-Z0-9_])([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.])*@([a-zA-Z\-])+\.([a-zA-Z\.]+)</val>
   </str>
   <str name="examples">
   <val>This pattern will search for email addresses.
   
   For example:
   John.Doe@acme.com
   John_Doe_1234@acme.gov
   j-doe@marketing.acme.net</val>
   </str>
   </set>
   
   
3. Copy that block of text and place it just before the last tag in the file which is </asf>.
4. Edit the block to add a new entry number, REGEX pattern, and descriptive example text:
   
   
   A) Change to Entry 6
   B) Change to the name you want to appear in Acrobat:
   e.g. Canadian Social Insurance Number
   C) Change description and examples. Optional, but nice for users.
   
   

   Careful! Do not eliminate any quotes (" ") or brackets (< >) or you will break the code. Only fill in between the opening <val> and closing <\val> tags.

   
   For example, my new Entry 6 for Canadian Social Insurance numbers looks like this:
   
   <set name="Entry6">
   <str name="displayName">
   <val>Canadian Social Insurance Number</val>
   </str>
   <str name="regEx" translate="no">
   <val>(\b)((\d{3}(-|\s|\.|_)\d{3}(-|\s|\.|_)\d{3})|(\d{9}))(\b)</val>
   </str>
   <str name="examples">
   <val>This pattern will search for 9-digit Canadian Social Insurance numbers, either consecutive or 3 digits plus 3 digits plus 3 digits (separated by punctuation marks).
   
   For example:
   123-456-789
   123456789</val>
   </str>
   </set>
5. Save the File
6. Restart Acrobat and choose View—>Toolbars—>Redaction
7. Click on the Search and Redact button.
   Your pattern should be listed in the list.
   
   

   I edited the file but the patterns aren't there! Make sure that you edited the file in the Preferences folder. There is an identical file used one level up that is easy to grab by mistake.

   
   

A Pre-Built Redaction Pattern file for Canada

Here's a customized Redaction pattern file (4K) that includes:

- Canadian Social Insurance Number

- Canadian Postal Codes

1. Quit Acrobat if it is open.
2. Find the search pattern file:
   WINDOWS
   

   \Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\ Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Preferences\Redaction\ <locale>\SearchRedactPatterns.xml
   
   MAC OSX INTEL
   /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Acrobat//9.0_x86/
   Redaction/<locale>/SearchRedactPatterns.xml

3. Rename the existing file to SearchRedactPatterns.bak
4. Place the new SearchRedactPatterns.xml file in the same folder.
5. Here's what you'll see when you restart Acrobat:
   
   

Happy searching!