effective way of blanking out text for photocopying

[Alan Braggins]

The "photocopy once, then cut up your first generation copy and make your distribution copies from that" suggestion would fix that if necessary.

[geoff]

In message , Sandi writes

Tippex do a white paper tape especially for such purposes in various widths

Look at any of the stationery sites such as Viking Direct

[mcp]

A solvent version of Tippex is still available, as well as the crap water based version.

[geoff]

In message , geoff writes

type "tippex" into the search bar

I forgot the roller stuff - that's what you want

[Appin]

The message from "Paul Nutteing (valid email address in post script )" contains these words:

Hmm ............ should have printed it graphically to pdf and it would have been OK.

Amazing how people are making a meal out of this. I do it all the time.

The quick and dirty way is, as has been pointed out, Copy each page once. Use a correction roler to blank out the offending text on the copies, Proceed to copy for your final version.

OR

Scan the pages. Even very simple scanning software usually has simple editing facitilies which can remove selected areas. If not, save to a format which a "paint" program can edit and use that to paint out the offending words.

[PCPaul]

Set the copier to pure black and white mode (sometimes called two-colour) instead of the default greyscale - that way things are either black or they aren't - so the slightly shinier/darker/lighter lines of the original writing will still definitely be on the 'black' side of the threshold and will all be the same colour as the obliteration.

[terry]

Why does it have to be BLACK tape? Regular white typing erasing tape 'should' cover up word items to be not published. And the gaps in the text will show that just as well as if it was 'blacked' out! Or have I missed something?

[ConfusedCarbuyer]

Dear Sandi Buy some large "Postits" which must be BLUE in colour - larger the better Tear (not cut) the edges so they do not appear sharp on a photo copy and paste over the offending type script Photo copy and hey presto! no lines, no blank (just white paper) and job done Chris

[Man at B&Q]

It's been a long time since photocopiers couldn't see blue.

MBQ

[Ian Jackson]

As I said a few days ago, yellow Postit notes, cut to size. It always worked for me.

[geoff]

In message , Ian Jackson writes

but why frig around with something like that when the correct tool for the job is so much better and easier

when there's a nutcracker available, do you go outside and crack nuts with a stone too ?

[Andy]

On Mon 01 Dec08 12:00, Andy Dingley wrote

Nice link. Not quite my situation but still a useful document. Thanks.

[Andy]

On Mon 01 Dec08 22:58, geoff wrote Sandi writes [to legal & diy newsgroups]

I found 3M Post-it's "Labelling And Cover Up" tape. This link is the

25mm wide tape but it also comes in 4mm and 8mm widths.

---------

Is the Tipp-Ex tape made of paper or plastic. I have a huge set of Tipp-Ex (and Bic Wite-Out) links here:

Bic Wite-Out Correction Tape

tape with side dispenser. Exact Liner EX Micro Tape Speedy DeleteO correction tape Liner

[geoff]

In message , Andy writes

You can get both sorts

the paper correction tape I have comes in a card container, the plastic comes in a "mouse"

[Sandi]

On Tue 02 Dec08 13:35, Appin wrote

AIUI some authorities check for fake documents which may have been created using a very high quality photocopier. It seems the copied version would have very tiny specks of ink.

't a third party look at the blank space with a powerful lens and perhaps recreate alphabetic characters by joining the locations of the microdots?

It could just take a single name for the anonymity of everyone to be exposed. For example, in this case if the consultant doctor's name, which was being kept hidden, got revealed then his clinic and his hospital can easily be looked up. After that most of the other blanked out names could be worked out without looking at any more blank spaces.

In this case scanning and using an image editing tool would take too long.

In the past I've had to create a PDF of the full document and also another PDF in which the names were removed or totally mangled beyond legibility. I found that the new PDF was many times bigger than the one I started with! This became a problem because I had many pages of documents and even a few of this enlarged PDFs were too big to email nor would the whole collection fit on a CD.

[Cynic]

No. You have misunderstood the information you scanned.

If the names have been blanked with correction tape and the photocopier set to "line art" (i.e. no greyscale), then there will be no dots or any other marks in the spaces that the correction tape has covered.