Adobe Community: Convert Color PDF to Black and White

Currently Being Moderated

1. Larry G. Schneider,

Oct 15, 2009 10:04 AM in reply to ryzerman19

Report

The easiest way would probably be to print to a .ps file using a B/W PPD and the distilling the resulting file back to a PDF.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

2. ryzerman19,

Oct 15, 2009 10:27 AM in reply to Larry G. Schneider

Report

Thanks. I thought about using a PS file but I don't know how to make black and white.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

3. Phillip Jones,

Oct 15, 2009 11:31 AM in reply to ryzerman19

Report

If you could use perhaps Photoshop if you have it to remove the color.

Or a Graphics Program I love to use GraphicConverter It has a setting in which you can remove color. you can save in any Graphic Format and PDF as well. Cost about $70.00 but once you buy it incremenatl versions are free and major upgrades are dirt cheap.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

4. ryzerman19,

Oct 16, 2009 5:42 AM in reply to Phillip Jones

Report

Sadly a graphics programs is not an option. I'm trying to offer a solution to staff who use Acrobat 7.0 standard.

How can I do this with a PS file?

Thanks

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

5. Luke Jennings,

Oct 16, 2009 6:18 AM in reply to ryzerman19

Report

Distill to a PDF, then in Acrobat go to tools> Print Production>convert colors> Device gray: Convert> Profile: grey gamma 2.2> don't embed profile.

Use advanced> output preview to toggle the black separation on and off to confirm the file is black only.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

6. ryzerman19,

Oct 16, 2009 9:17 AM in reply to Luke Jennings

Report

Thanks for the detailed steps. I noticed this only works in professional. Can you think of a way to do this in Standard 7.0?

Thanks again

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

7. Larry G. Schneider,

Oct 16, 2009 10:22 AM in reply to ryzerman19

Report

Print to a .ps file using the PPD of any B/W printer like an HP 4100, then distill the resulting .ps file.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

8. Lizziebeth10,

Sep 7, 2010 8:17 AM in reply to Larry G. Schneider

Report

Kinda scary-easy...

Go to File

Select Print

Change printer to Adobe PDF

Go to the properties tab

Find the button to click to change it to Black/white, and click it

Print the document - it will ask for a file name, so give it something different from the original or you will overwrite the original

Open the new document if it doesn't open automatically.

It doesn't always handle images well, and is truly black and white, but hey, it sure saves on printer cartridges!

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

9. asrichman,

Oct 22, 2010 10:04 AM in reply to Luke Jennings

Report

Thank you. Luke's process (post #5) worked, but the resulting document is larger than my color file. I am trying to reduce the size of my file, is converting to Black and White not a helpful way to do this?

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

10. ~graffiti,

Oct 22, 2010 10:41 AM in reply to asrichman

Report

After converting the file, did you do a "Save As" (not "save")?

That should get rid of any extraneous information that is not needed any more.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

11. Russell Goodman,

Oct 22, 2010 10:42 AM in reply to asrichman

Report

If not, under the Advanced Menu is PDF Optimizer where you have different settings to reduce the file size.

Be careful not to sacrifice quality of the file just to stuff it small enough to email. If you can't make it small enough, there are many FTP options you can look into.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

12. asrichman,

Oct 22, 2010 11:14 AM in reply to Russell Goodman

Report

Thanks for the quick responses.

Save as gave me exactly the same file size -- still almost 50% bigger than the color file. Any idea why the greyscale (I didn't do BW, I did greyscale) file would be larger than the color file?

Thanks,

Andrew

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

13. p taz,

Oct 24, 2010 3:19 PM in reply to asrichman

Report

Different compression setting to the original file?

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

14. loganbauer,

Aug 25, 2011 12:45 AM in reply to ryzerman19

Report

Though you are asking about Acrobat 7.0, this post describes how to do this very well in Acrobat 9 Pro. Maybe older versions are supported as well.

http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2009/10/converting-color-pdf-to-greysca le-pdf-an-update/

|

Mark as:

Creating, Editing & Exporting PDFs

Convert Color PDF to Black and White

Oct 15, 2009 9:55 AM

More Like This

Bookmarked By (0)

Answers + Points = Status