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Answered

Converting an Adobe illustrator file to black and white Pdf Is causing problems

Forum|Forum|27 days ago
March 9, 2026
4 replies
119 views

HI,

So I create simple vector graphics mostly lines and text in black and then export or save them as pdfs. I then want to check them on the following website to see if they’re black and white.

https://pct.wipo.int/DocConverter/pages/pdfValidator.xhtml

I have always gotten the answer that my pdfs are grayscale and the converted files are thus messed up. The blacks I have tried are CMYK 60 40 40 100, CMYK 0 0 0 1000 and Hex 000000. none seem to be working.

Under Preferences> Appearance of black> I changed it to Output all Blacks accurately

Export settings are:

Illustrator Default
No Standard
No Compression
No Color Conversion
Including all or no Profiles
No advanced Settings or security.

With Inkscape's black and exporting it to Pdfs I didn’t encounter any problems after checking it on the site.

Correct answer sharp_Ripple0602

Using RGB color mode solved it for me, thank you

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

100% Blacks from a CMYK document are seen as greyscale by the validator.

It looks like they are converting the CMYK document to RGB and a 100% black from a CMYK document is always lighter than an RGB black and is interpreted as greyscale.

I tried to send and RGB document with RGB 0/0/0 and the greyscale complaint was absent.

So it looks like they only accept RGB blacks.

John Kallios

Participating Frequently

The standard profiles do not convert 0,0,0 RGB into 100k black. I wish it did. 0,0,0, 100k does not exist in RGB gamut.

From the original poster, I wonder if their document was in RGB mode when the person tried 0,0,0,100.

To the OP, did you you preflight only through the website or have you also profiled through Acrobat?

sharp_Ripple0602Author

Participant

The documents I tried with where always in CMYK mode and I only checked with the website as I then have to upload there.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

If your document mode is CMYK and you select Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to Grayscale, the result is just using shades of one ink: Black.

John Kallios

Participating Frequently

What is the color mode set in your Illustrator document. Does it say RGB or CMYK? Set all your colors to 0,0,0,100k

The pdf does not matter if it thinks it is cmyk if all the artwork outputs on the black channel.

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

John,

are you the same John Kallios who was active on the Illustrator forum a quarter of a century ago?

If so, I'm delighted to hear from you again.

John Kallios

Participating Frequently

I am the same person. Good to hear from you. Nothing beats the OG forums.

darthlobster

Known Participant

Well, CMYK stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow and BlacK.
If you are choosing 60/40/40/100, you are using colour, in spite the overall appearance is black.

Best way to keep it black and white is to to choose 0/0/0/100. this will use 100% black only.

sharp_Ripple0602Author

Participant

I used these three colors: CMYK 60 40 40 100, CMYK 0 0 0 1000 and Hex 000000. and none worked

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