Redact an Excel Native in Review

In Epiq Discovery, you can review and redact native Excel files directly within the Native Excel Viewer. This viewer enables you to interact with Excel files in their native format, supporting XLSX and XLS files. It offers redaction tools, which allow you to redact content, apply redaction labels, choose fill colors, search for specific content, and clear or download redactions as needed.

Note that the Native Excel Viewer is currently available as a Feature Preview and is not enabled by default. Enabling this feature in Project Settings provides you with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with a newly designed feature that is functional, but not complete. Use this preview feature with the understanding that it is not yet fully complete or supported.

You can apply redactions by selecting a range of cells. When opening a file in the Excel Viewer, the system displays all hidden rows, columns, and sheets. You must select both a redaction label and the content before clicking the Redact icon. By default, the system fills redacted cells with black.

When you apply redactions to XLSX or XLS files, the system automatically saves your changes every 20 seconds. Additionally, when you switch from the Excel Viewer to another tab, the system automatically saves any applied redactions. These actions update metadata fields such as Has Redactions and Redaction Type, which also appear in the User Audit History Report and Document History.

When you search in the Native Excel Viewer, the system finds content within the active sheet in the workbook.

You can enable or disable the Excel Viewer in the Project Settings under Document List and Viewer Settings. Refer to Enable Excel Viewer for more information. By default, this option is enabled for new projects.

You can apply redactions to selected cell or range, choosing any of the Redaction Reasons set in Project Settings. Refer to Modify review settings and highlights for more information.

Some limitations apply to this feature. For more information, refer to Known limitations.

To redact an Excel native file, perform the following procedure.

  1. In the Main Menu, select Review.

  2. Select a document to view in the Docked Viewer or click in the Docked Viewer to open the Undocked Viewer.

  3. Apply redactions to a cell or range in the Excel file using the following actions as needed.

    • To apply a redaction, select a redaction reason from Select Redaction Label, then select a cell or range, and click . The reason remains selected. To apply the same reason to another cell or range, select another cell or range and click .

    • To apply a redaction color, select a redaction reason as needed, select cell or range, then click and select a color.

    • To change the color of an existing redaction, click an existing redaction and then select .

  4. To search for cell contents, perform the following steps.

    1. Click . Then select from the following options.

      • Optional. Select Case Sensitive to find only results that match the exact capitalization.

      • Optional. Select Match entire contents to find only results that match the full cell content.

      • In Find what, enter your search term.

      • In Look in, select whether to search within formulas, values, or comments.

    2. Click Next to find the first matching cell in the active sheet. Then, apply redaction to that cell as needed. Click Next again to find subsequent cells matching the search.

    3. When done, click to close the Search dialog box.

  5. Optional. You cannot remove single redactions at this time. However, you can remove all redactions from the document. To remove all redactions and restore the document to its original state, click .

  6. To download the redacted file, click .