Comments on: Grayscale PDF From a Color Layout

By: InDesignSecrets Podcast 171 | InDesignSecrets

InDesignSecrets Podcast 171 | InDesignSecrets — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:49:37 +0000

[...] movie > Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (filibustering InDesign grayscale issues) > Exporting Grayscale PDF files in older versions (this is a new feature in [...]

By: it services austin

it services austin — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:53:15 +0000

When I initially commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get 4 emails with the same comment. Is there any manner you can remove me from that service? Thanks!

By: Debbie D.

Debbie D. — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:11:27 +0000

Thank you so much – I never remember how to do this. What a pain. We print our newsletter in greyscale, but publish it in full color on-line. This was so helpful. Such an easy trick. Thanks Josh – Advanced/Print Production/Convert colors takes a minute and lets you save your new file with a different name. Bookmarking this for the next time I forget.

By: Muhannad Salha

Muhannad Salha — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 07:09:49 +0000

It’s easy friend
if you don’t have any photos (only photos )
you can just delete the colors from swatches.
If you have photos then you have to give an order for printing and select gray printing, then you have to select pdf file form your printer name.
I wish that will work.

By: liz banbury

liz banbury — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:38:52 +0000

Hello.
I also need to export as pdf an Indesign ‘Book’ to the printers, but they must have the Printer output options ‘Colour Composite Grey’ and ‘Text as Black’ selected. My document is B&W anyway, but based on CMYK.

I have to use the Export as PDF function as they also require the fonts to be embedded.

It seems that neither the ‘Adobe PDF Presets’ and ‘Export to PDF’ Function do not incorporate the above Printer Output options.

It seems like you should be able to do both, and I’m using CS5 as well.

Are there any other options to be able to do both in one pdf document at the same time and preferably from a book, and not an open document?

Any help would be really appreciated!

By: Flashduette

Flashduette — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:59:16 +0000

When using Advanced–>Print Production–> Convert Colors, the quality of the color eps files converted to grayscale is not good at all.
I you compare your original grayscale pdf with mixed tiff and eps to the one created from the print production menu, you will notice that not only the grayscale eps are darker but the tiff files that were perfect in the first pdf are now also darker and not very good.
I think the tip is much better as the eps files are perfectly converted and you have to make only one pdf file. It does not take that much time to set the transparency of the eps files to 99.9% and the advantage is that if you want to print in color in the future, you will not have to change anything.
All you have to do is create a script that will convert the transparency to 99.9% for all your eps files.

By: Razvan

Razvan — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:19:46 +0000

Thank You for this article. I look after him from a long time

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:51:01 +0000

I’m so glad that you posted this! It really helped! It was so easy to follow your instructions for Acrobat Pro BlueKDesign!

By: Stef

Stef — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:34:36 +0000

I’ve been converting a color pdf (output from indesign at 300 dpi) with Acrobat Pro 6 (…) into grayscale but I noticed the document gets much lighter and the images are much more compressed (ie. pixellated) than before. Am I doing something wrong?
I’ve been trying to give the printer a b/w pdf file but I gave up and gave him a CYMK black and white pdf file.
I’m sure he’ll know what to do with it, but in the past printers have complained about having to do the conversion.
Any other option?

Thank you.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:22:06 +0000

In Quark, we set up a page using gray images and black type, and then saved the PDF as grayscale.

When I looked for a “PDF as Grayscale” option in InDesign I couldn’t find one and was confused. I spoke to our prepress person and she gave me some helpful information. In InDesign, since we’re only using gray art and black type, when we export the PDF – even as “CMYK” – it will only print black because that’s the only ink we’ve used. (I guess I was afraid that saving as CMYK would split my blacks into CMYK amounts, or add some zero amount of CMYK that would complicate things, but that’s not the case.)