Redact an Excel Native in Review

In Epiq Discover, 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, XLS, XLSM, XLSB, XLTM, and XLTX files. It offers redaction tools, which allow you to redact content, apply redaction labels, choose fill colors, search for specific content, view in transparent mode, zoom, print, or delete redactions. You can download the original native, redacted native, or redacted content in transparent mode as needed.

Note that the Native Excel Viewer is available as a Feature Preview and is not enabled by default. Enable this option in Project Settings to try the redesigned experience, with additional enhancements coming soon.

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, sheets, and shows formula cells as values.

When you apply redactions, the system automatically saves your changes. 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 disabled for new projects.

You can apply redactions to a selected cell or range by choosing any of the Redaction Reasons set in Project Settings or add a new one. Once added, the new redaction label is also available under Redaction Reasons 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, complete the following steps.

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.

   • To add a new redaction label, from the Redaction label field, select Add Redaction Label. Then, in Redaction Label, enter the label name and click Add Label.

   • To apply a redaction, select a redaction reason from the Redaction label field, 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. By default, the system fills redacted cells with black.

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

4. To search for cell contents, follow these steps.

   1. Click and do the following.

      • In Content Search, enter your search term.

      • In Search In, select whether to search within values, or comments.

      • In Options, do the following.

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

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

   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 Close to close the Search dialog box.

5. To print a document, click . Then follow these steps.

   1. In Images/Shapes, select whether to show or hide images and shapes in the printed output.

   2. In Page Orientation, select the page layout as Portrait or Landscape.

   3. In Order, select the page print order.

   4. In Scale, select how you want to scale the document for printing.

   5. In Size, select the paper size.

   6. Click Print.

6. To view the redacted cells in a transparent view, click . Click it again to hide the redacted content.

7. To zoom in or out, select a zoom level from the zoom dropdown.

8. To delete a redaction, select an existing redaction and click .

9. To download the original native file, click and then do one of the following.

   • Select Original Native to download the original native.

   • Select Redacted Native to download the redacted native.