How to Print a PDF in Black and White to Save Ink

Printing in black and white saves colour ink, and there are two quite different ways to get there — one that tells the printer to use only black, and one that converts the colours to grey and still uses colour ink to make the grey. People choose the second by accident all the time.

Grayscale and "black ink only" are not the same

Grayscale converts colours to shades of grey. Many inkjets then mix colour inks to produce a neutral grey, because composite grey looks better than black alone. You have changed the appearance and saved very little colour ink.

Black ink only — sometimes "Use black cartridge only", "Grayscale: black print cartridge", or "Print in grayscale (black ink only)" — restricts output to the black cartridge. This is the one that actually saves colour ink.

If saving colour ink is the point, find the second option. It usually lives one level deeper, in the printer's own properties rather than the application's print dialog.

Where the setting lives

Adobe Acrobat and Reader — the Print in grayscale (black and white) checkbox in the print dialog. For black-ink-only, open Properties and look under a Colour or Quality tab.

Chrome and Edge — More settings → Color → Black and white. For black-ink-only you generally need the system dialog: choose Print using system dialog, then Properties.

macOS Preview — Show Details, then the printer-specific panel; look for Black & White, Grayscale, or a Colour Options section. Wording varies by driver more than by application.

Windows — most reliably in Printer Properties, under Colour or Quality.

The pattern across all of them: the application offers grayscale, the driver offers black-ink-only.

Combine it with the settings that save more

Colour is often not the biggest saving available.

Draft or EconoMode lays down less toner or ink per page. On a text document the quality drop is barely noticeable and the saving is larger than switching to grayscale. It is the single most effective setting for internal drafts.

Two-sided printing halves the paper, which usually costs more than the ink does.

Pages per sheet halves it again. Two-up plus double-sided is four original pages per physical sheet.

Print only what you need. Page ranges are the most overlooked saving of all — printing pages 4 to 9 of a 60-page report rather than the lot.

For a genuinely light draft: black ink only, draft quality, double-sided, two pages per sheet.

When black and white makes the document unreadable

Some documents depend on colour to carry meaning, and greyscaling them quietly destroys information:

• Charts with colour-coded series become several indistinguishable grey lines.
• Colour-coded status — red/amber/green — collapses to similar greys.
• Coloured hyperlink text loses its only cue.
• Highlighted passages may darken enough to obscure the text underneath.

Print one page first if the document is chart-heavy. If it is unreadable, either print those pages in colour or change the source to use patterns, line styles and labels rather than colour alone — which is also what makes a chart accessible to colour-blind readers.

Making a permanent grayscale copy

If you need a file in black and white — to archive, or to send to someone who will print it — a print setting will not do it, because the file still contains colour.

Print to PDF with grayscale selected, and you get a new greyscale file. Check the result: converted greys are sometimes muddier than expected, especially behind coloured text.

If the issue is specific coloured elements rather than the whole document, editing is more precise than converting everything. This site's editor works on files up to 10 MB and 100 pages and preserves the layout, so you can change coloured text to black without the page reflowing.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my printer still using colour ink in grayscale? Because many inkjets mix colour inks to make a better grey. Find the black-ink-only setting in the printer properties.

Does grayscale printing save ink overall? It saves colour ink. Draft mode saves more ink overall on a text document.

Why is my black and white page washed out? Draft or EconoMode is on, or the black cartridge is low. Turn draft off for anything final.

Can I set black and white as the default? Yes — in your operating system's printer preferences. It applies to every application rather than needing to be set each time.

Does this change the PDF file? No, it is a print setting. Print to PDF if you need a greyscale file.