Grayscale PDF
Remove the colour from one or more PDFs to print them in black and white. Text stays text and images keep their resolution.
Select your PDF files
or drag them here (you can choose several)
How to convert a PDF to grayscale
The tool replaces each colour in the document with its equivalent grey (based on brightness) without turning the pages into pictures: the text can still be selected and searched.
Choose one or more PDFs. You'll see the first page before and after the change.
Keep the “Keep text and vectors” mode or, if a document doesn't come out well, choose “Turn each page into an image”.
Click “Convert to grayscale” and download the PDF (or a ZIP if you chose several).
What is converting a PDF to grayscale useful for?
Saving color ink when printing
Convert documents to black and white to cut printing costs on home and office printers.
Meeting requirements of online registries
Many government offices require digitized documents in black and white or grayscale.
Reducing PDF file size
By removing color data from images, final document file size drops significantly.
Improving uniformity of scanned documents
Standardizes pages with uneven tones or darkened backgrounds for professional reading.
Why use JapalTools?
Your files never leave your device
Everything happens in your browser. Documents are never uploaded to any server, so you can use it with payslips, contracts or ID documents.
Free, no sign-up and no watermarks
You don't need an account or to leave your email, and nothing is added to the result.
Works on any device
Computer, tablet or phone, with an up-to-date browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari). Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, with the “Keep text and vectors” mode: only the colours change and the text stays text. If a page contains something that can't safely be turned grey, that page is converted into an image and the result tells you so. With the “Turn each page into an image” mode the text is no longer selectable.
They keep their resolution. JPEG photos are saved again as greyscale JPEG with a quality similar to the original, and other images are saved losslessly. Since grey uses a single channel instead of three or four, the file usually ends up the same size or smaller.
No. The whole conversion happens in your browser, on your own device. The PDFs are not sent to any server and nobody else can see them.
No. The document is processed in your own browser and is not sent to JapalTools or anyone else. When you close the page, no copy remains outside your device.