Adobe Acrobat Pro is the default PDF tool in most law offices, and it does redact. Veil is a new desktop app built around redaction, and it reviews, fills and signs too. If you’re deciding where your next few hundred dollars go, here’s how they compare on the work a small firm actually does.
Redaction: Veil’s home ground
Acrobat Pro redacts well when you know what you’re looking for. You mark text or areas, or search for a word or a pattern like phone numbers, card numbers or email addresses, then apply. Its Sanitize feature strips hidden information. What it doesn’t do is recognize that “Okafor” is a person or that a line is a home address.
Veil does. Its detector looks for 62 kinds of sensitive information, names and addresses included, and reads scans with its own text recognition. On real-world legal documents in the RedactionBench test set, its developer reports scores of 0.83 to 0.88 F1, depending on settings. That’s good, but it isn’t a reason to skip reviewing every page. Veil also adds batch redaction of whole folders, consistent pseudonyms across documents (“Witness 1” stays “Witness 1” in every exhibit) and a redaction certificate you can keep in the file.
Both remove the underlying content properly when used correctly. Veil’s method, rebuilding redacted pages from images, leaves less room for user error.
| For a law office | Veil | Acrobat Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Finds names and addresses automatically | Yes | No, patterns and words only |
| Batch redaction | Yes, folder in, folder out | Through Action Wizard setup |
| Redaction certificate | Yes | No |
| Bates numbering | No | Yes |
| Edit a PDF's existing text | No | Yes |
| Word tracked changes in and out | Yes | PDF comments only |
| Compare versions | Yes, any format, scans too | Yes, PDFs |
| Send for e-signature with tracking | No | Yes |
| AI assistant | Your own account; sees redacted text | Paid add-on; sees the document |
| Documents leave the computer | Only redacted text, only for the assistant | For cloud, AI and sharing features |
| Price per person | $129–249 once, or $199 a year for teams | About $240 a year |
Where Acrobat clearly wins
Bates numbering is the big one: Veil doesn’t do it, and productions need it. Acrobat also edits the existing text of a PDF, builds forms from scratch, sends documents for signature with an audit trail, and checks signatures against trusted certificate authorities, which Veil does not. It’s also what opposing counsel and the court already use.
Where Veil earns its place
Discovery responses, exhibits, medical records attached to a filing and anything you’d like to run past an AI without disclosing a client’s identity. Veil’s assistant flags obligations, deadlines and one-sided terms in a contract and suggests redlines, which appear as tracked changes you accept or reject. It works with your firm’s own AI account and sees the redacted text by default. For a firm weighing its duties under ABA Formal Opinion 512, that default is a meaningful advantage.
It also handles Word properly. Tracked changes and comment threads come in from Word and go back out as real tracked changes, which most PDF tools don’t attempt.
Which to buy
Solo, light redaction
Veil Personal may be all you need, if you don't produce Bates-numbered sets.
Litigation practice
Keep Acrobat for Bates and editing. Add Veil Professional for redaction and certificates.
Firm using AI daily
Veil Team, so client names stay out of every prompt by default.
Acrobat prices change often; check Adobe’s current plans. Whatever you choose, a human still reviews every redaction before it’s filed.