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Acrobat Pro DC - How can one convert a PDF from color to black & white?

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Seems like the old option under Preflight for Convert to Gray Scale is gone and I can't find anything else that might do it. Any help out there?

Anubha GoelCorrect answer

Participating Frequently

Hey shubus,

We would certainly help you.

Open the PDF in Acrobat DC and choose "Print Production > Preflight" and choose Convert to grayscale under Convert Colors category.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Anubha

D

defaultjq8f0111puwo

Participant

I have not had any luck with any of the solutions posted here. The "Print to PDF" option does not work when requesting grayscale, it still produces a colour PDF document. Please advise how to fix this.

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T

Tariq Dar

Legend

Hi @defaultjq8f0111puwo,

Sorry for the delayed response.
If non of the above suggestions didn't work. There is likely some issue with the file.
If possible, please attach the file, and I will take a look.

~Tariq

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s.mccrory

Known Participant

None of these suggested solutions works. I am on the latest 2023 versions of Adobe Software.

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mariahweyne

Inspiring

Try this

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A

Andie31636468412v

Participant

You are my hero! Thank you so much for providing and up-to-date and simple solution.

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R

raintan33

Participant

I tried all of these options, but none of them worked. What worked for me to get a monochrome image (black and white, no grey) was the following:

1. Open the PDF in Photoshop in RGB mode

2. Use the Image->Adjustments->Black and White and set all the values to -200

3. Adjust the levels with Image->Adjustments->Levels and drag the leftmost slider all the way to the right.

4. Save as Photoshop PDF

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joeg65656140

Participating Frequently

Is there a way to convert specific pages?

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Dov Isaacs

Legend

Somewhat of a kludge, but extract the pages you want to convert as a separate PDF file. Convert them to grayscale with Preflight. Then import them back into the original PDF file and delete the color versions of those pages.

- Dov

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- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

LCoughlinIIB

Participant

I have a document that has mostly black text but a few items that are green on the same page. When I go into Preflight I can see that when the document prints it is using all of the colors to create black which is eating up a massive amount of color toner cartridges. Is there any way to make the black on the page print black and not processed black while allowing the small amounts of color print in color??

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J

Jmcginn

Inspiring

IS there a way to only convert certain pages? I noticed when you select preflight only pages the analyze and fix option goes away. Also how do you get to this forum from the Adobe Forums page? I had to google the question and find the forum that way. Otherwise on the main site I keep getting redirected to a non support forum.

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S

ShubusAuthor

Participant

That did it! Options have moved around a bit in the DC version.

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Anubha Goel

Participating Frequently

Hi Shubus

That's great

Thanks for your reply.

Regards,

Anubha

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S

ShubusAuthor

Participant

While this does get me a great greayscale image, I must lament the inability to produce a decent black & white (NOT grayscale) pdf. The workaround of converting to a 300dpi "tiff" file still works of course, but the loss of resolution is very noticeable.

Outside of Photoshop, I'm not aware of a solution to this yet, but at least grayscale is fine.

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Anubha GoelCorrect answer

Participating Frequently

Hey shubus,

We would certainly help you.

Open the PDF in Acrobat DC and choose "Print Production > Preflight" and choose Convert to grayscale under Convert Colors category.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Anubha

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D

Deb_Marvin

Participant

Any possibility this answer can be updated to the 2017 version - my options don't match and, although I figured it out eventually, an updated screen shot showing the current interface would help others.

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