diff --git a/lib/RELEASE-NOTES b/lib/RELEASE-NOTES
index 59325c3bd2..a48968b24d 100644
--- a/lib/RELEASE-NOTES
+++ b/lib/RELEASE-NOTES
@@ -111,6 +111,10 @@
   opened in editable mode. This state used to be hardcoded at compile
   time.
 
+* buffer-anonymize (2.3.2)
+  Replace all text n the document by streams of `a'. This is useful
+  for sharing private documents in a bug report.
+
 * font-crossout
   Cross out characters.
 
diff --git a/src/Buffer.cpp b/src/Buffer.cpp
index ca3c049b4d..1ae48acc8a 100644
--- a/src/Buffer.cpp
+++ b/src/Buffer.cpp
@@ -2612,15 +2612,16 @@ bool Buffer::getStatus(FuncRequest const & cmd, FuncStatus & flag)
 		flag.setOnOff(params().output_changes);
 		break;
 
-	case LFUN_BUFFER_TOGGLE_COMPRESSION: {
+	case LFUN_BUFFER_TOGGLE_COMPRESSION:
 		flag.setOnOff(params().compressed);
 		break;
-	}
 
-	case LFUN_BUFFER_TOGGLE_OUTPUT_SYNC: {
+	case LFUN_BUFFER_TOGGLE_OUTPUT_SYNC:
 		flag.setOnOff(params().output_sync);
 		break;
-	}
+
+	case LFUN_BUFFER_ANONYMIZE:
+		break;
 
 	default:
 		return false;
@@ -2898,6 +2899,15 @@ void Buffer::dispatch(FuncRequest const & func, DispatchResult & dr)
 		params().output_sync = !params().output_sync;
 		break;
 
+	case LFUN_BUFFER_ANONYMIZE: {
+		undo().recordUndoFullBuffer(CursorData());
+		CursorData cur(doc_iterator_begin(this));
+		for ( ; cur ; cur.forwardPar())
+			cur.paragraph().anonymize();
+		dr.forceBufferUpdate();
+		break;
+	}
+
 	default:
 		dispatched = false;
 		break;
diff --git a/src/BufferView.cpp b/src/BufferView.cpp
index bf7c1ea165..e141f34c7e 100644
--- a/src/BufferView.cpp
+++ b/src/BufferView.cpp
@@ -1112,7 +1112,6 @@ bool BufferView::getStatus(FuncRequest const & cmd, FuncStatus & flag)
 	case LFUN_WORD_FIND_FORWARD:
 	case LFUN_WORD_FIND_BACKWARD:
 	case LFUN_WORD_REPLACE:
-	case LFUN_BUFFER_ANONYMIZE:
 	case LFUN_MARK_OFF:
 	case LFUN_MARK_ON:
 	case LFUN_MARK_TOGGLE:
@@ -1576,14 +1575,6 @@ void BufferView::dispatch(FuncRequest const & cmd, DispatchResult & dr)
 		break;
 	}
 
-	case LFUN_BUFFER_ANONYMIZE: {
-		for(char c = '0'; c <='Z'; c++) {
-		  odocstringstream ss;
-		  ss << "a\n" << c << "\n0 0 1 1 0"; 
-		  lyx::dispatch(FuncRequest(LFUN_WORD_REPLACE, ss.str()));
-		}
-	}
-
 	case LFUN_WORD_FINDADV: {
 		FindAndReplaceOptions opt;
 		istringstream iss(to_utf8(cmd.argument()));
diff --git a/src/Paragraph.cpp b/src/Paragraph.cpp
index 5c5a728027..c905856e9c 100644
--- a/src/Paragraph.cpp
+++ b/src/Paragraph.cpp
@@ -4176,6 +4176,15 @@ SpellChecker::Result Paragraph::spellCheck(pos_type & from, pos_type & to,
 }
 
 
+void Paragraph::anonymize()
+{
+	// This is a very crude anonymization for now
+	for (char_type & c : d->text_)
+		if (isLetterChar(c) || isNumber(c))
+			c = 'a';
+}
+
+
 void Paragraph::Private::markMisspelledWords(
 	pos_type const & first, pos_type const & last,
 	SpellChecker::Result result,
diff --git a/src/Paragraph.h b/src/Paragraph.h
index d462f4c413..0c6c48090f 100644
--- a/src/Paragraph.h
+++ b/src/Paragraph.h
@@ -505,6 +505,10 @@ public:
 	/// presently used only in the XHTML output routines.
 	std::string magicLabel() const;
 
+	/// anonymizes the paragraph contents (but not the paragraphs
+	/// contained inside it. Does not handle undo.
+	void anonymize();
+
 private:
 	/// Expand the counters for the labelstring of \c layout
 	docstring expandParagraphLabel(Layout const &, BufferParams const &,