Grayscale PDF
Turn every page of a PDF black and white, with its text still selectable. No upload, no signup.
Files stay on your device How it works
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PDF · up to 10 files, 100 MB each
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How to make a PDF black and white
- Choose up to 10 PDFs, each up to 100 MB, or drop them on the box.
- Press Convert to grayscale.
- Download the gray copies. The note under each one says if any page may still show some color.
Why print in black and white
Color ink costs more than black, and some printers only print in black and white anyway. A gray copy also shows you, before you print, how a chart or a photo will come out on a black-and-white printer: two colors that look different on screen can turn into the same gray. Some forms and applications ask for black-and-white copies too.
Text stays text
Many converters turn each page into a picture, which blurs the text and makes it impossible to select or search. This tool changes only the colors. Text keeps its fonts and stays sharp, selectable and searchable, and links, bookmarks and form fields keep working.
How colors become gray
Each color is replaced by a gray of the same brightness, using the conversion the PDF standard itself gives (ISO 32000-1): 30% of the red, 59% of the green and 11% of the blue. CMYK colors, the inks used in printing, follow the standard’s matching formula. That covers text, lines and shapes, gradients, comments, form fields and pictures. JPEG photos are saved again as gray JPEGs; other pictures become gray with nothing lost.
What it can’t convert
A few things are left as they were, and the result names the pages they’re on: pictures your browser can’t read, such as JPEG 2000; CMYK JPEG photos, whose colors depend on how they were saved; spot colors, the named inks used for a brand color; some unusual gradients and patterns; and tiny pictures stored inside the page itself. If a page is listed, look at it before you print.
Good to know
The file often gets smaller, because a gray picture stores one value for each pixel where a color one stores three. Each copy keeps its name with “-grayscale” added. A digitally signed PDF loses its signature when it’s changed, so convert before signing. To check fonts and picture resolution before sending a file to a print shop, use Print-Ready PDF.