Redacted Text Generator – Black Bars, a Label or Stars

Q: How do I censor curse words in a text?

Type the word alone. Censored with asterisks, the censored text generator row, keeps the first letter and turns the rest into asterisks, so darn comes out as d***. That softens a word. It does not hide which word it was.

Same text, other styles

Redacted letters Th█ █urpr█se part█ █s █n F█ida█ ██ ██x12 of 31 letters and digits blacked out.

Redacted, with the label The [REDACTED] [REDACTED] is on Friday at [REDACTED]3 of 8 words blacked out.

Censored with asterisks The s******* p**** is on Friday at s**3 of 8 words starred out.

More options

Check it fits: limit characters

Use these for fun, not for anything that matters. Screen readers read many of these characters badly or skip them, search cannot find them, and some apps strip them or show empty boxes.

All 4 styles on this page

Show the list

Redacted words ███ 123 A share of the words blacked out with block characters, one block per character, so the line keeps its shape.
Redacted letters Ab█ 12█ A share of the single letters and digits blacked out, wherever they fall.
Redacted, with the label Abc [REDACTED] A share of the words replaced by [REDACTED], the way a released document marks a cut.
Censored with asterisks A** 123 A share of the words starred out: the first letter stays and the rest become asterisks.

Block: 5 characters

█ U+2588 Full block.
▇ U+2587 Lower seven eighths block.
▓ U+2593 Dark shade.
■ U+25A0 Black square.
▮ U+25AE Black vertical rectangle.

Where these characters come from: Each character was typed by hand from the Unicode code charts and checked against UnicodeData.txt of Unicode 18.0.0, which is also where the names are from. A pair marked as a near miss was judged by eye, because Unicode's own list of confusable characters does not hold it. Licence: Unicode data files are used under the Unicode License v3 (https://www.unicode.org/license.txt).

How these styles work: none of them is a font. Each one swaps your letters for other characters that Unicode already has, or adds combining marks to them, so the result is plain text that can be pasted anywhere. The maps were built from the Unicode code charts, and a character that has no look-alike is left as it is.

How it works

This redacted text generator swaps the letters of some words for █ Full block characters, so hidden words are gone from the copy, not covered. Some apps strip or block these characters, and screen readers may read them badly.

Read the full guide

Four ways to black out a line

The large card is Redacted words: a share of the words become bars, one block per character, so the line keeps its length. Below are Redacted letters, single letters covered wherever they fall, Redacted, with the label, which writes [REDACTED] in place of each chosen word, and Censored with asterisks, which keeps a word's first letter.

The dial and the draw

How much to black out opens at 40% and moves a tenth at a time, never down to nothing; turning it up only adds. Black out other words draws again. Spaces and punctuation stay. The label is 10 characters whatever the word, so it gives no length away.

There is no redacted emoji. The redacted text symbol is █ Full block, U+2588, which is not on Unicode's emoji list.
Under Block the bar can be ▇, ▓, ■ or ▮ instead: Lower seven eighths block, Dark shade, Black square or Black vertical rectangle.
A bar shows how long the hidden word was. Wikipedia's article on redaction notes that the length may help in guessing shorter redacted sections.

Questions and answers

How do I make redacted text to copy and paste?

It is already made: the sample opens with three of its eight words under bars. Type your own sentence in its place and the bars move to it. The copy holds █ characters where those words were.

Can I choose which words this blacked out text generator covers?

Not by tapping. The draw is random. For one chosen word, type it alone: a single word is always covered. Then paste the bar over that word in your own text.

Is censor bar text really text?

Yes. The bar is a row of █ characters, one per hidden letter. One block alone, the black censor box to copy and paste, is on the rectangle symbols page.

Can redacted text be uncovered?

Not from what you copy here: the hidden letters are not in it. Wikipedia's article on redaction records the opposite case, black rectangles laid over text in a PDF, where the original text remains in the file.

How do I censor curse words in a text?

Type the word alone. Censored with asterisks, the censored text generator row, keeps the first letter and turns the rest into asterisks, so darn comes out as d***. That softens a word. It does not hide which word it was.