Fancy modest minimalism instead of garish glitz? Looking to give a document an instantly cool appeal—or get it ready to print when a printer driver won’t do grayscale? Find out here how to convert a PDF file to grayscale on a Mac using Preview.
First, When You See a Rainbow
When you see a rainbow that is bright and narrow, it has big drops of water producing it. For large drops lead to narrow and sharply delineated bands of color.
Conversely, small and smaller droplets spread the refracted and reflected light far and farther. The colors overlap and wash out, and the rainbow appears less bright. It can even appear almost gray.
With that in mind, want to send a PDF file through minuscule metaphoric droplets? You can, with Preview on a Mac:
How to Convert a PDF File to Grayscale with Mac Preview
Time needed: 2 minutes
To save a PDF file converted to grayscale using macOS Preview on a Mac:
- Open the PDF document in Preview.
- Select File | Export… from the menu.
Preview keyboard shortcut: You can set up a keyboard shortcut for exporting in Preview if that’s a frequent action.
- Select Gray Tone under Quartz Filter:.
Black and white: You can also choose Black & White for a strictly black and white document; this is best suited, of course, to text documents.
Other tints: Blue and sepia tones are also available and work similar to grayscale.
- Enter a different name for the exported copy under Export As:.
Overwrite: You can also keep the old file name and overwrite the document so it turns to a grayscale PDF file in place.
Caution: Overwrite the original file only when you are fully prepared to forfeit its color for good. - Click Save.
All gray for display: How to Use Grayscale Mode on a Mac
How to Convert a PDF File to Grayscale with Mac Preview: FAQ
Can I undo converting the PDF to grayscale?
No.
You cannot easily restore color to a grayscale PDF document, and macOS file versions will often not work to let you recover the original file either. it is best to save the grayscale version as a new copy.
Can I convert to grayscale for printing?
Yes.
If a printer does not offer the option to print in grayscale (or black and white entirely), you can print a copy you have converted to grayscale instead.
(How to convert a PDF file to grayscale tested with Preview 11 on macOS Sonoma 14.5; first published July 2024)