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Participating Frequently
March 4, 2022
Question

Is this Program able to change the Background of PDF files

  • March 4, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 414 views

I have a number of PDF documents, some 100 pages,  which I want to print out. However the background when printed is much too dark. I have searched among PDF Editing programs for one which will change the background of a file, without success. Does anyone know of an editing progam (photo or PDF) which might Change the Background of a PDF File (change to white, or even neutral or transparent.? I would appreciate any advice and help on this

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2 replies

Community Expert
March 4, 2022

If you want to retain the vector and layered nature of the contents of this PDF, you could bring that into a vector editor such as Affinity Designer, or Adobe Illustrator, or similar. Then the text and the background will be separately controllable and the text remains proper text - which will print crisply and even remain editable. Adobe allows a short one-off trial of Illustrator, which should last long enough to carry out the task. To continue using Illustrator after that trial ends you would need either a single-product subscription plan, or a subscription plan for the all-apps bundle which includes that (much more expensive).

 

Affinity software is IMO more consumer-level in its pricing, and its perpetual license rather than subscription. It may not be quite as maturely developed, or as industry-standard as the Adobe software is - but no complaints about its feature set. Personally I would be considering buying that in your situation, especially if similar tasks may occur again.

 

If you bring a PDF into Photoshop it is likely to just get turned into a bitmap graphic all on a single layer at the requested PPI resolution. You can still lighten that whole thing strategically, possibly in a way that maintains the blackness of the text (assuming it is black text) - but will have dumbed it down graphically. Not recommended.

 

Lightroom is not able to do anything with a PDF.  

JP Hess
Inspiring
March 4, 2022

Lightroom Classic has the capability to create a PDF slideshow and in that process do a little customization of the background during the creation process. However, there is no provision to modify an already existing PDF file.