Mark's answer is absolutely right for an appeals court. However, your question involves a transcript going to a third party. I don't know whether you're thinking of the press, or something under the freedom of information act or something like that. In that case, although the original transcript would have everything, the version sent to the third party might have sections that are redacted or crossed out with black marker.
This would occur only where information that is on the record should be protected. For instance, most courts will redact a social security number from a publicly released transcript to prevent identity fraud. Or in a case where the witness's identity needs to be protected, the full transcript will have the name, but the public transcripts will have it crossed out.
Understand that transcripts are normally not prepared. The cost for a written transcript is expensive, running easily into several hundred dollars for a less than one day trial. Even to get the tapes (you don't get the originals, someone has to copy them) is costly, although not as bad as a written version.
If you give us a better idea of what your story needs, we could probably give you a more exact answer. I've got a trade secrets transcript that is so redacted it is almost funny. But no one involved, not the courts, not the attorneys, not the stenographer, wanted to be accused of having the magic formula, so everybody agreed that a lot of it would be crossed out. Same approach as cases involving national secrets. Unless you have a need to know, you don't want to know. And in these types of cases, even the appeals court version will be redacted.
Best of luck,
Jim Clark-Dawe
