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

Community Beginner ,
Mar 11, 2021 Mar 11, 2021

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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?

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Edit and convert PDFs

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New Here ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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For my situation, I needed to break up the PDF into images to upload in another application to generate letters.  I personally don't use MS Paint. I use Snag It. Going to Monochrome as others suggested would not work with my PDF. Grayscale almost works, but some pages I have to Color Adjust. No sure what Sandrah's goal is here other than go B&W.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 08, 2023 Feb 08, 2023

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The issue that the others mention, I guess, is: can I scan a document full of shades as the annexed into a purely black and white document? If yes how do we do so? See the annexed page. If the answer is simply "no", I am surprised that there is no easy-to-access tool for this purpose in Acrobat is needed. We all know that people send photos and tend not to use scanners, and this impairs filing, archiving and printing of such documents. 

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Community Expert ,
Feb 08, 2023 Feb 08, 2023

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Instructions were given above on how to do it. It's not easy setting it up, but it is possible.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 08, 2023 Feb 08, 2023

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If you want to do it easily use an image editor, though, like Photoshop. It's much more adapt at this kind of editing than Acrobat is.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

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Thank you. Your replies, instructions and the tool you shared unfortunately do not help. As Acrobat is used for documents it still seems appropriate to insist that Adobe implements these tools into Acrobat.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

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The only efficient solution I found is to send the document to my phone, use an app called Genius Scan, convert to black and white each page separately as the tool does not run for full documents. I am truly surprised that a market leader like Acrobat does not have a predefined tool for this. I see from the suggestions that is an issued raised many times. Hope you implement it soon.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 09, 2023 Feb 09, 2023

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I don't work for Adobe, nor speak on their behalf, just to be clear.

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New Here ,
Aug 08, 2023 Aug 08, 2023

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This worked perfectly!  Thanks you so much for cutting through the noise and nailing the solution!!

FWIW, I'm an architect and often get large drawing sets that were plotted incorrectly out of AutoCAD.  The files will have red/orange/yellow/blue linework on white background and impossible to read.  Going greyscale in this common situation is not entirely helpful because the lighter colors will translate to very light grey and still be unreadable.  The answer is to force black and white using a method like yours.  This instantly makes the drawings useful.  When working with historic/archive technical vector drawings, something like this is invaluable.

 

Thanks again try67!!

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Community Expert ,
Aug 09, 2023 Aug 09, 2023

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FWIW, I'm an architect and often get large drawing sets that were plotted incorrectly out of AutoCAD.  The files will have red/orange/yellow/blue linework on white background and impossible to read. 


By @Jai Agrawal


I feel your pain. The correct way would be to go back to the initial draftsperson and to require the correct plot. But if the Autocad file disapeared on the harddisk of an unknown person, you are out of luck. 

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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New Here ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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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.

 

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Community Expert ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

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