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Question

Convert PDF to 100% black and white (NOT grayscale)?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 11, 2021
5 replies
57768 views

Does Acrobat Pro have a way to convert PDFs to true black and white? When I look in the "convert colors" function in print production it has grayscale, but I don't see black and white as an option. I've been searching for fixes and every tutorial and question/answer I find only converts to grayscale; does Acrobat not have the capability to convert to ture black and white?

Edit and convert PDFs

J

jordan_9787

Participant

I couldn't figure out how to do it in Acrobat, but I was able to convert the file to a word doc and then go into the color scale in word, choose a black and white that worked with my background, and then convert that to a PDF.

K

kathleen_7434

Participant

I recall doing this in the late 1990s with a slider to choose the cutoff for readability and got clear black text on white with bit of black shadows in the corners. Dunno what program. Too bad Adobe cant be bothered.

M

mario27188307sq8h

Participant

I do not believe there is. I have an app called Snag It Editor. I had to save my pdf as images, and then click Color Adjustment. Worked like a charm. Hope this helps.

Abambo

Community Expert

Please see here… same remarks, more or less: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/convert-pdf-to-100-black-and-white-not-grayscale/m-p/13352849#M387483

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

try67

Community Expert

Yes, it is possible. Here's how:

- Download this file (I can't attach it here directly, unfortunately).

- In Acrobat (Pro), go to Tools - Print Production - Preflight.

- Click Options - Import Preflight Profile and select the file you downloaded earlier.

- A new item will appear under Custom Profiles, called "Convert to B&W".

- Open your PDF file and then run this Preflight Profile on it by clicking on "Analyze & Fix".

- When it's done save the new file under a new name, and you're done!

S

sandrah80731053Author

Participating Frequently

I ran this through preflight, and it gave the response "Preflight profile "Convert to BW" did not find any errors or warnings", but it also didn't seem to change the file at all, it is still grayscale. My goal is to convert text scanned in grayscale over to 000000/FFFFFF and nothing else.

C

Cerbo24878402260w

Participant

It does have an edit button in the preflight menu, and when I click on that I get a window tells me that it's unlocked, the name and author, but I don't see anything to actually edit there.

Maybe a solution I have find, but I have not tried it full. I'm working with an old version of Acrobat.

Open the PDF in Word (2016, maybe 2010 also)... Sometimes Word doesn't change the fonts, and you can "black and white" each page... Then you can save in PDF, and your PDF is black and white.

If Word alters the PDF (I can't find how to tell him "don't do that"), maybe you can try that : save the PDF in Acrobat in JPG (or PNG ?)... Then add all the JPG files in Word, "black and white" them with the option for that in "Images" you know, and then save in PDF, your PDF will be black and white... Maybe a few long, and I had problem to save all the PDF in JPG with my old Acrobat version, but in theory, it works...

gary_sc

Community Expert

Hi Sandrah,

Just out of curiosity, what is your goal, what are you hoping to achieve?

FWIW, B&W and grayscale are almost synonymous. I say "almost" becuase absolute B&W means that all antialiasing is converted to black as well. This is text at 200% the top one has antialiasing the bottom one is converted to absolute B&W. Are you sure you want that?

S

sandrah80731053Author

Participating Frequently

I am aware that black and white means no shades in between, that's why I specified that I did not want grayscale. I want the only colors in the document to be 100% white and 100% black, aliasing is fine.

gary_sc

Community Expert

Two thoughts: can you get what you want from the original application that made the document?

If not, do you have access to Photoshop?

Also, what do you plan on doing with shades that will end up 50% gray? Average them up or down?

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