Is there a way to have a .pdf print differently in b&w than how it appears digitally?

Question

There's a chart on my resume that only makes sense when printed in color, and looks very clean and nice digitally and when printed in color, however I'm wondering if there's a way to set it to print slightly differently (with dates written out) when printed in B&W? I'm using Acrobat CC and created the document originally on InDesign if that makes any difference!

Luke Jennings · Answer

I believe so. Make a new layer in InDesign for the B&W content, you can convert it to B&W if you want to insure it will only print as B&W.

Export to PDF with the color layer turned on and the B&W layer turned off, be sure to select "Create Acrobat Layers".

The PDF will include both layers, but only the color layer will be visible on screen. In Acrobat, go to View> Show/Hide> Navigation Panes> Layers (or click on the pancake icon), select the color layer and using the fly out menu, set the layer property to show but don't print, then select the B&W layer and set the layer property to print but don't show.

This should work when the PDF is opened in Acrobat or Reader, it might not work in other PDF viewers.

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