Convert pages in PDF to greyscale

[tomlar1977]

We have a HP Indigo 5500, which both is cheaper to print on and runs faster, if it only prints in one color. We have a hotfolder which works fine, if we will print a color job in greyscale, since it converts the entire document. But sometimes a customer asks us if we can print a job where page 1-24 is in 4 color, page 25-51 is greyscale, then a few pages in color again, 10 pages in greyscale and so on. This is where we right now at the moment tells our customer that the price is either in 100% 4 color or 100% greyscale, since the Indigo has no utility to convert specific pages. I know that if only the pages contain black, it will only print black, but just a single dot somewhere in more than the one color makes it count more and print slower, and it is impossible to believe that customers are capable of doing correct jobs for this.

So, does any of you know how to convert a range of pages in a PDF to greyscale, of course without doing a lot of work on each page, since time is money?

Kind regards,
Tommy

 

[pdan]

You would have to break the document into sections in Acrobat.
For the b/w sections, use Preflight (Advanced > Preflight > PDF fixups) to convert to grayscale.
You could create a batch process to hit all those b/w sections in one batch, then reassemble the thing.

 

[airyk]

if you have Pistop you can select a range of pgs to convert to b&w

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Another option is to use the Convert Colours command of Acrobat Pro to convert a range of pages to grayscale. This would need to be done on each continuous section of pages (Advanced > Print Production).

Screen shot attached, I have highlighted the three important areas (the interface looks more confusing than it really is, as there are a lot of options).


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[cjwworld]

I like to use a plugin for Acrobat called Quite A Box Of Tricks. It makes it so simple to convert to greyscale
http://www.quite.com/box/

 

[mattbeals]

Quite A Box of Tricks is a good plug-in. For a little extra oomph you should try callas pdfToolbox. pdfToolbox also makes this and many other functions very easy and gives very good results.