Convert a PDF to grayscale or black and white
Turn a colour PDF gray or black & white for cheap printing, text kept sharp. Stays on your device.
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The phone probably ran out of memory. Lighter settings are now on for this tab, so try again — or split a big PDF into parts first.
Drop the PDF to turn gray here
PDF up to 100 MB · The file never leaves your device.
How it works
Drop the PDF and it is turned gray straight away. Choose Black & white instead if you want pure black text on white paper. A preview shows the first page; press Download to save the copy with "-grayscale" or "-bw" added to the name. Nothing is uploaded, there is no account and there is no page limit.
Why print in gray
Colour cartridges are the expensive part of printing. A cyber café or office printer often charges more for colour pages, and some forms, exam documents and court filings ask for black and white copies. Converting before you print means every page comes out the same — no faint coloured text, no wasted colour ink on a logo — and the file you send is often smaller.
Text stays text
Most tools turn every page into a picture to make it gray, which makes text blurry when you zoom, impossible to search or copy, and the file much bigger. Here, "Keep text sharp where possible" changes the colours inside the page itself: coloured text becomes gray or black text, coloured boxes and lines become gray, and nothing is redrawn. The words stay real text, so they print crisply and can still be searched and copied.
Some pages can't be changed that way — usually because they carry a colour photo, a colour gradient or a scanned image. Those pages are drawn as gray pictures instead, and the result tells you how many pages went each way.
Grayscale or black & white?
- Grayscale keeps every shade, so photos, charts and stamps still look right. Best for most documents.
- Black & white makes text pure black and light backgrounds pure white. Best for text-heavy pages and faded scans; scanned pages become crisp, fax-like and very small. Light highlights and table shading turn white so they never hide the words.
Good companions
Need it smaller as well? Run Compress PDF on the result. To make scanned pages searchable after converting, use OCR PDF. To put pages on A4 before printing, use Resize PDF Pages.
Privacy
The conversion happens on your own device. Your PDF is never sent to us or anyone else.
Questions people ask
How do I convert a colour PDF to black and white?
Drop the PDF here and choose Black & white. Every page is converted; check the preview and press Download.
Will the text become blurry?
Not with Keep text sharp on. Text and drawings are recoloured inside the page and stay real text. Only pages with colour photos are drawn as gray pictures.
Grayscale or black and white — which should I pick?
Grayscale for documents with photos, charts or stamps. Black & white for text pages and faded scans, where it gives the crispest print.
Does it make the file smaller?
Often, especially black and white scans. Pages kept as text barely change. To reach a size limit, run Compress PDF afterwards.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Everything happens in your browser on your own device, so the document never leaves it.