Hi there,
Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out. I’m sorry you’re running into this.
From what you described, changing the grayscale setting to SGray likely corrupted or locked the Acrobat preferences, which is why even reinstalling didn’t fix it. This usually happens because Acrobat keeps old preference files even after uninstall.
Since you can’t access the app UI, we’ll reset it from the system level:
Step 1:
- Close Acrobat completely
- Make sure Acrobat is not running
- Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc)
- End any Acrobat-related processes
Step 2:
- Delete/Reset Preferences folder
- Press Windows + R
- Type: %appdata%\Adobe\Acrobat
- Open the folder (you’ll see a version folder like DC or similar)
- Rename the folder (for safety), for example: DC_old
Step 3:
- Also clear Local preferences
- Press Windows + R
- Type: %localappdata%\Adobe\Acrobat
- Again, rename the folder (e.g., DC_old)
Step 4:
- Relaunch Acrobat
- It will create fresh default settings
- The grey screen issue should be resolved
Once fixed, for printing in grayscale, instead of changing preferences globally, try:
Open the PDF > Go to Print and select, ‘Print in greyscale’ > Print. This avoids affecting Acrobat display settings.
If it still doesn’t work, could you let us know:
- Are you using Acrobat Reader (free) or Acrobat Pro subscription?
- The version of the Acrobat App you are using?
- The exact path where you changed SGray (Preferences > Color Management?)
Let us know how it goes.
~Amal
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