PDF to Grayscale Converter — Free Online
Convert a colour PDF to black and white — free, browser-based, no upload.
Drop a PDF here or click to select
All colour will be removed — output is black and white
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About PDF to Grayscale
Convert any colour PDF to grayscale — removing all colour information and producing a black-and-white version of your document. Ideal for reducing printing costs, creating printer-friendly versions of presentations, or standardising documents for black-and-white archives. Processing is entirely browser-based; nothing is uploaded.
Use Cases
Creating printer-friendly black-and-white versions of coloured brochures, reducing ink usage when printing reports, archiving documents in greyscale for storage, preparing black-and-white versions of slides.
How It Works
Uses PDF.js to render each page onto a canvas, then applies a luminance formula (0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B) to convert each pixel to grayscale. The grayscale pages are embedded as images into a new PDF using pdf-lib.
FAQs
Will text remain readable after conversion?
Yes. Text in the original PDF will appear as dark grey or black on a white/light background — just without colour.
Does the output PDF still have selectable text?
No — the output pages are rendered images. For text selection, use the original PDF.
How does this help with printing costs?
Many printers charge more per page for colour printing. Converting to grayscale before printing lets you use the cheaper black-and-white print mode even from documents that contain colour.