Grayscale PDF From a Color Layout
September 28th, 2007Q: Our office periodically needs to create a grayscale PDF for one of our clients, even though their jobs are done in CMYK plus spot plates. There’s no place to choose “grayscale” in the Export to PDF dialog box. We tried printing to the Adobe PDF printer instead, since the Print dialog box does offer Composite Gray as an Output choice, but some of the graphics didn’t convert — they stayed in color. We really don’t want to have to re-create these files in grayscale, as some are over 200 pages long!
A: InDesign can convert colors to grayscale during the process you describe only if it can “get” to them. It does fine with any color created in InDesign itself (CMYK, RGB or Lab; process or spot), as well as placed color TIFFs and PSD files, even if the PSD has a spot color channel. However, InDesign won’t change placed color EPS and PDF images into grayscale.
The good news is, through a simple hack, you can force InDesign to convert those recalcitrant images too. Nick Hodge first wrote about this trick for InDesign 2.0 and it still works in both CS, CS2, and CS3.
He discovered that when any image is run through InDesign’s transparency flattener, the program has a chance to adjust its colors to conform to the type of Color Output (in this case, Composite Gray) you set in the Print dialog box.
If you select one of your stubborn color images and set it to have a 99.9 percent opacity from the Transparency palette (Window > Transparency… in CS3, it’s Window > Effects), it’s enough to trigger the Transparency Flattener when you output to a flattened format. That allows InDesign to get in there and convert it to grayscale while it’s at it, without changing the look of the image at all, since the .01 percent that is transparent is not detectable.
Apply that transparency setting to any placed PDF or EPS images first. Then, when you print to the Adobe PDF printer, make sure that changing the Color Output to Composite Gray is the last thing you change in the dialog box before you click the Print button. We’ve found that sometimes, the selection reverts to the Composite CMYK choice if you go elsewhere in the dialog box, or click the Printer (or Setup, in Windows) button afterwards, before clicking the final Print button.
This post excerpted from Adobe InDesign CS/CS2 Breakthroughs, by David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción, published by Peachpit Press.
So there’s no way to automate this if the person asking this question already has an indesign file 200 pages long with a large number of eps and pdf files?
I have two other suggestions:
1. Set the Color Management printer profile in the print dialog to a grayscale icc profile like Gray Gamma 1.8 or sGray.
or
2. In Acrobat Pro use Tools | Print Production | Convert Colors… Set everthing to Convert and choose a grayscale profile for the Destination Space. Be sure to change EVERY spot color from Preserve to Convert. Select the page range & click OK to start the conversion process.
There’s a WAY easier way to get a black and white PDF from a color InDesign file… Just export normally as a PDF and then in Acrobat Pro go to Advanced—>Print Production—> Convert Colors. Within that dialog you can select the document colors you’d like to convert (CMYK, RGB, etc…) and change the action underneath to CONVERT. Then under Destination Space, select a profile (such as Gray Gamma 2.2). Save and DONE.
I’m going to have to agree with you, Josh and BlueK: Acrobat 8’s Convert Colors feature is far easier! There are other PDF utilities that can do the conversion, too, such as Quite a Box of Tricks. Thanks for chiming in about this “post processing” trick.
Acrobat 7 Pro can also convert colors, by the way. Couple that with batch processing, and changing these 200-page-long documents just got easier.
Another option is re-printing to PDF in Acrobat. Go to “Advanced” print options and change the color to “Composite Gray” (or so).
Thanks, worked great!!!!!! Much quicker than replacing images w/ greyscale ones.
Two other new ways now in Acrobat 8 to convert …
1. use the preflight fix-ups which can be combined with other preflight and fixing routines. This option has many, many more options for conversion of all types of objects as well
2. use the touch-up object tool for individual image colour conversion (right/control click / properties / convert color) - very cute!
Jon
Converting to Grayscale in Acrobat (Print Production > convert colors…..)works as Josh and BlueK mentioned. But it is not advisable if you are printing thus converted Grayscale ad on a CMYK page or form as the Grayscale is made up of CMYK values. Go to Advance > Output Preview in Acrobat to see the CMYK values of the Grayscale document.
Virendra
One way I have always done it was to export as a black and white eps then convert the eps to a pdf. You still have the vector format and crisp images.
Somewhat unrelated question but this is the closest I’ve found to what I’m looking for. How do you print gray as a screen for print on press
Firstly thanks to Josh and BlueK…I am outputting for a greyscale newspaper ad and was concerned that as Virendra said, it would be made up of CMYK. I am using CS3 and found that if you follow the instructions as explained by Josh and BlueK…
“Just export normally as a PDF and then in Acrobat Pro go to Advanced—>Print Production—> Convert Colors. Within that dialog you can select the document colors you’d like to convert (CMYK, RGB, etc…) and change the action underneath to CONVERT. Then under Destination Space, select a profile (such as Gray Gamma 2.2)…”
…And under Conversion Options select embed Profile as OutputIntent
you will get a perfect greyscale (1 black plate).
THANK YOU!!! I was struggling with ads for a journal and these tips have saved me so much time and aggravation.
This worked best for us in removing any color from PDF’s…In Acrobat 8>Advanced>Preflight>digital printing. Click on digital printing (B/W). This converts all color to greyscale.
It appears that the oft-forgotten Apple ColorSync Utility, which came bundled with your friendly-neighborhood-copy-of-OS-X, has been forgotten again. This software can convert PDFs to grayscale as well, for those of you who don’t own Acrobat or find it too complicated.
Oh InDesign Secrets, I love you!
Thank you for this perfect-solution-to-yet-another-last-minute -request. I always find so much useful practical info here. You’re the best!
Thank you! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I will set this page as a favorite from now on.
Okay, I could make the whole catalog b/w with any of the methods above. Unfortunately, that’s not what the powers-that-be are after. They want to reduce ink costs by cutting back on the color ink, but keep the full color images that really need to be in color (like the cover, and the fabric color samples page).
I came here looking for a quick way to convert individual images to b/w, instead of the obvious method of making a new b/w version of each one in Photoshop and re-adding it to the layout. That would take a very long time.
Could you guys point me in the right direction on this (and explain it as you would to a child
?
Ryan, have a try with this… Color2Gray converts images to B/W and works great… Best of all, it’s free.