Convert a PDF to Grayscale for Printing
Most documents carry colour that printing cannot justify: a highlighted heading, a logo, a chart legend. Grayscale keeps the page readable on a mono printer.
What this tool does
Converts colour pages to grayscale or pure black for printing, with separate choices for text and images and an option to compress the images on the way through.
How it works
Choose how text and images convert, then download. Keeping images in colour while text goes black is useful for a report that has to stay readable on a mono printer without losing a chart. The conversion runs on the server's native PDF engine, so it is available whenever that engine is installed — the tool page says so if it is not.
- Choose the PDF, or drag it onto the page.
- Set text conversion and image conversion — the settings below explain what each one changes.
- Run the tool and download the result.
Settings that decide the result
- Text conversion — Grayscale, Black
- Image conversion — Grayscale, None (keep colour)
- Compress images
When to reach for it
- A colour document must print on a mono printer. Convert first so contrast survives the printer's own conversion.
- You need smaller files as a side effect. Compressing the images on the way through helps.
Questions we get
Does grayscale ruin the colour original?
No — the copy you download is grey; your upload keeps its colour. Images can stay in colour while only the text is converted, if you prefer.
Where it fits
The tools people usually open next to Grayscale:
- Deskew — Automatically straighten and deskew scanned PDF pages.
- Header & Footer — Apply page numbers or text labels to PDF files.
- Page Numbers — Apply page numbering to PDF files.
Every tool works on a copy, so the original file is never modified. Uploads are stored under an unguessable id and deleted automatically two hours after you last open them; nothing is listed, shared or indexed. More on the security page.