How do I invert colors on document

[Roy Sallie]

How do I invert colors on a document

No I don't mean this

1. Right-click on the PDF document for which you want to invert its colors.
2. Go to Open with and choose Adobe Acrobat Reader.
3. Click on the Edit menu.
4. Select Preferences.
5. Choose Accessibility from the left-hand pane.
6. Mark the Replace Document Colors checkbox.
7. Select the Custom Color radio option.
8. Click on the checkboxes for Page Background and Document Text.
9. For each of the above options, select your preferred color.
10. Hit OK to save your new color preferences.

No I don't mean the above method.

I mean how do I actually invert colors of the image of the PDF itself not the text and background

The above method only work with PDFs that can be read aloud or have editable text.

I need to invert the colors on a scanned document that reads as a image in adobe and does not have editable text. The same way you would invert colors in magnifyer but I need to do that just on the document. PS I would use magnifyer but when I put it the PDF on full screen, outside of the PDF itself is black which is converted to bright white, not helpful for viewing in a dark room which is the purpose.

[try67]

Use an image editor, like Photoshop, and then create a new PDF file from the edited images.

[stef28267887vm1g]

Thats not a helpful solution to the problem.

[ls_rbls]

Adobe Express , both the mobile app and through online services, has many features for free that allows you to do that, including removing the entire background and adding and saving the image file with a transparent background.

But you are dealing with scanned images.

Scanned images involve many digital layers that are composed  of many other different types of data to make it appear as an single  image file readable to the human eye.

In which, case you should not confuse interchangeably Adobe Acrobat Pro (which is a PDF editing program) with a program that specializes in graphical image manipulation, such as Adobe Photoshop (as correctly suggested @try67), to include others like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Express, Microsoft Paint, Inkscape, GIMP, for example.

Scanned images should be edited and tested externally before you import them in Adobe Acrobat or you will find yourself in a world of doom for using the incorrect program.

However, Adobe Acrobat do have the Preflight tool which comprises a more advanced set of tools to work around similar issues under the Print Production tool.

The Print Production tool  is already shipped with your paid subscription of Adobe Acrobat Pro (full desktop version).

Also, I am not sure why are you using the recommended guidance of the Accessibility tool when that feature is not meant to handle scanned images at all.

In any case, if you are copying and pasting these scanned images from a web browser (or any other program for that matter) directly onto a PDF document that is viewed in Acrobat, that is also the wrong approach (unless of course, you've taken the time to edit these scanned images and test them externally with another image editing software as suggested earlier).

All said,  the easiest way that you should've explored first,  is to employ the Scan & OCR tool => Insert => "From File..." to perform text and image recognizition as it uploads the entire scanned image to your PDF document and while retaining the page dimensions that are already set in that PDF document.

Then open the Edit PDF tool and you'll be able to see which bounding boxes pertain to text or image content.

Right-clicking with the mouse pointing device on an image bounding box will allow you to select "Delete" from the context menu, thus removing that image's colored background that appears behind the layered text bounding boxes.

OR,

You can also select from that same context menu "Replace Image", in which case you can upload an solid color  .png image file which will do the trick as changing the background color.

[stef28267887vm1g]

Many free Linux PDF readers have such a feature for better reading at night. I think it is absurd to recommend changing the whole PDF all together since you also want to be able to switch between both modes.

[ls_rbls]

I use Linux too, but in the context of the topic that the OP posted we are talking about various different things.

The recommended guidance of inverting the document colors using the Accessibility tool method is correct.

But the OP forgot to clarify, that the Accessibility tool won't flip colors on text and image content.

Since the OP specifically clarified that he/she is working with scanned images the correct way and easy way to do that is, to first get familiarized with all the basic features of Adobe Acrobat.

In which case, scanned images are handled with the Scan & OCR tool to recognize text amd images and be able to separate those layers.

And then you'll be able to remove the image background layer from that scanned image using the Edit PDF tool; which will will allow to see the text image content on top of whatever custom dark colors were employed using the Accessibility tool in that document.

And just for kicks, if you already have a paid subscription of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, you can use Adobe Online Services to perform basic document editing from a Linux box accessed through any of your favorite supported web browsers.

[stef28267887vm1g]

I tried a lot and the only way I could achieve this functionality on Mac was to install Linux PDF readers like Evince and Okular via Homebrew. They both work well after first tests, even on Apple silicon.

[Rishav28291053abag]

Skim has the ability to do that I believe. (Invert colors in Dark Mode in Display preferences)

[Cody28872741jiwu · Accepted solution]

Open the PDF you want to edit.

-File > Print

-Printer > Adobe PDF

-Click Advanced button

-Settings > Cutom

-(Output) on left side selected

-Output: Color: Composite Grey

-Negative Box > Checked

-Hit OK

-Print/Save new file

It will not look like it changed at first, but wait a second and it will or open the new file.

I had a problem with this and could not find a good explanation. Hope this helps someone.

[ls_rbls]

@Cody28872741jiwu ,

This actually seems to be the correct answer. Thank you for sharing!

[paul2fix]

Thank-you!

[Cathy26284998rjb9]

I have a document with red background and white text. It uses a LOT of ink. When I followed these instructions, the background became dark gray which simply uses a lot of a different color toner. Frustrated 😞 

[jerrod_5286]

Output options are all greyed out and cannot be changed?  

[Thom Coverly]

Unfortunately the option to choose "Adobe PDF" as the printer is available only in Windows. Not an option for Mac. 
(Mac has other ways of saving or "printing" to PDF but they don't give access to the Advanced settings described in this solution.)