My pdf won't print in grayscale

[it@caotti.net]

I found a free daily calendar PDF online that I downloaded and I like to print it out to prioritize and schedule the tasks I need to work on.

It happens to be in color, which I don't need, and I don't want to waste colored ink, so I always check the "print grayscale" box in the print dialog box.

I've never had problems with it before; it always printed in grayscale with no problem, but a few days ago, the preview in the print dialog didn't change when I checked that box. I thought maybe it was some kind of glitch and it might print grayscale anyway, but no. It printed color and prints color every time.

I tried to look around in advanced settings, thinking maybe there was some other box that needed to be checked or unchecked, but I couldn't find any.

Am I missing something? Has anyone else ever had a similar problem?

I realize I could probably open the PDF in Photoshop and change it permanently to grayscale there, but I kind of would like to figure out how to fix this in case I run into the problem again.

[Adorobat]

Hi ,

Could you please tell what Operating system do you have- Windows/Mac?

Have you tried to print other document?

Please perform the steps which are given in below links:

Print in black and white using Acrobat or Reader

https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/how-to-convert-pdf-files-to-grayscale

Let us know if you face any issue.

Thank You!

Shivam

[it@caotti.net]

I'm sorry, I didn't think to include that information.

I'm on a PC running Windows 7.

I just tried it with a different PDF and the preview in the print dialog box did turn to grayscale when I checked print to grayscale and it did print it that way.

I checked, and it seems the documents were opening in Acrobat Reader DC, so I tried opening them in Acrobat XI instead, but had the same problem with the document that keeps printing in color.

I tried the instructions in your first link, but the dialog box shown there doesn't look like either of the dialog boxes I see in Reader DC or Acrobat XI. The Advanced button is on the top of my dialog boxes, not the bottom, and there doesn't seem to be anything there to change it to grayscale. When I click on Color Management, it looks as if it's set to composite gray, but as you see, the preview is still color.

I'll upload a screenshot of the advanced print dialog I'm seeing in Acrobat XI:

[Adorobat]

Have you tried second link?

[it@caotti.net]

I just tried the second link and it did allow me to print the PDF in black and white. Though the instructions made me think doing it this way would physically change the entire document to grayscale permanently. But nothing in the document changed, even thought it printed in grayscale.

That's really what I wanted, but if that procedure really was supposed to convert the entire document to grayscale, it makes me wonder why it didn't change it visually? The document used in the example in the second link did change to grayscale so you could see it. Mine was still color, though it printed black and white.

I really would prefer to do this the way I always did, by selecting grayscale in the print dialog box. It's much quicker that way, and doesn't change the document permanently. But I don't understand why it wouldn't work for just this document and no others?

If the file were corrupt somehow, I would have thought I wouldn't be able to open it at all, or that it would look distorted somehow when it was opened.

[Adorobat]

It could be possible that there are some security settings implemented on this document which causes it to grayed out Output options in color under Advanced settings.