Most printers have a grayscale or black-and-white option, and when it is there and works, use it. Often it isn't that simple: the option is buried in a driver dialog, a copy shop or online print service prints exactly what you send, a shared office printer keeps resetting to color, or a color page costs more even when it looks gray. Converting the PDF itself to grayscale settles it — the file has no color left to print.
Try the print setting first
On Windows, open Printer properties or Preferences in the print dialog and look for a Color setting with Grayscale or Black & White. On a Mac, choose Show Details in the print dialog and look for Black & White in the printer's options. In Chrome's print preview, set Color to Black and white. The exact labels depend on the printer driver, and some printers don't offer the option at all.
Convert the file instead
Grayscale PDF converts every color in the document — text, drawings, photos, highlights — to its shade of gray and saves a new PDF. Text and vector graphics stay text and vectors rather than being turned into images, so they print as sharply as before. There are no settings: add the file and choose Convert to grayscale.
Without its color information the file is often smaller too, especially for scans and photo-heavy documents.
Grayscale, not pure black
The result keeps shades of gray: a light-blue highlight becomes light gray and a photo keeps its tones. That is usually what you want on paper. Very pale colored text — yellow, light cyan — turns into very pale gray, and will be hard to read in any black-and-white print; the only fix for that is darker text in the original document.
Check charts before a big print run
Charts and maps that tell things apart by color alone — a red line and a green line — can become two nearly identical grays. Look over the converted file before printing many copies, and if two series can't be told apart, add labels or patterns in the original.
Conversion runs on our servers with Ghostscript. Files are deleted two hours after upload, or straight away when you choose Delete my files from the server now.
Step by step
- Open Grayscale PDF — Add the PDF you want to print.
- Convert — Choose Convert to grayscale — there are no other settings.
- Check and print — Look over charts and highlights, download, and print the new file as usual.