Convert a PDF to greyscale
Convert a colour PDF to greyscale (black and white, or “grayscale” in US spelling) so it prints cleanly and doesn’t use up your colour cartridges. Everything on the page turns grey, photos included.
or drop a file here
One PDF, up to 250 MB.
Processed on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
How to convert a PDF to greyscale
Open the PDF
You’ll see a greyscale preview of the first page.
Choose a resolution
150 DPI for normal documents, 300 DPI for small print.
Convert and download
Pages are processed one at a time on your device.
What you get
No colour left behind
Photos, charts, coloured backgrounds and transparent overlays all go grey. Methods that only swap text colours tend to miss some of these.
Colours stay distinguishable
We weight red, green and blue the way your eye does, so a red heading and a green line don’t end up as the same grey.
Scans often get smaller
Grey images compress better than colour ones, so colour scans usually lose some weight too.
The trade-off to know about
To be sure every bit of colour is gone, each page is re-drawn as a greyscale image. The result looks right on screen and in print, but its text becomes part of the picture, so you can’t select, search or copy it any more.
If you only want to print in black and white, your printer’s greyscale setting might be all you need, and it leaves the PDF untouched. If size is the problem rather than colour, try Compress PDF.
Privacy and security
Conversion runs entirely in your browser. Your document isn’t uploaded, and the original keeps its colour; you download a separate greyscale copy.
Read more in our privacy policy.
Greyscale PDF FAQs
Can I still select the text afterwards?
No. Pages become greyscale images, a bit like a scan. Keep the original if you need the text.
Which resolution should I use?
150 DPI for everyday documents. 300 DPI for fine print, technical drawings or anything you’ll zoom into.
Greyscale or grayscale?
Same thing. “Greyscale” is the usual British spelling, “grayscale” the American one.