Create a Pdf X/3 in grayscale

[Blac]

Dear Community,

i would like to generate a grayscale pdf out of Scribus for my printery in Pdf X3.
Is this possible? I didn't find a option to do so....

[Christen_Anderson]

Yes. In the "Save as PDF dialog"...
Color -> Output Intended for "Grayscale"

HTH,
Christen

[Blac]

Does only work for Pdf 1.3 or above NOT fpr PDF X/3, I however need PDF X/3 in grayscale

[utnik]

hi blac

scribus doesn't change the colors when exporting to pdf/x-3.
you could convert all your pictures and graphic elements before you place them in your .sla file. then exporting to pdf/x-3 should result in a correct grayscale document.
another possibility is the export with the development version scribus 1.5.0svn as a pdf/x-1a.
every pdf/x-1a is a valid pdf/x-3, but with all elements converted into the final color profile...

utnik

[Christen_Anderson]

Does only work for Pdf 1.3 or above NOT fpr PDF X/3, I however need PDF X/3 in grayscale

Oops sorry, read the original post wrong...

[Blac]

Hmm, i will create a 200+ pages document with many pictures so i would like to have not too much effort with converting the images...
i'll try out the devolpoment version for converting..but isnt there any other possibility for grayscales in pdf x3

[utnik]

..but isnt there any other possibility for grayscales in pdf x3

afaik not within scribus.
if you have access to acrobat pro (not really cheap), you may convert the pdf later.

but there are reasons for converting your pictures manually – some of them may look perfect in color, but not in grayscale, unless you play with the gradation curves (sometimes it's necessary to adjust the r, g and b curves separately before you reduce to grayscale...)

good luck
utnik

[GarryP]

As an additional option you could have a look at ImageMagick from http://www.imagemagick.org

A command such as:
convert -colorspace GRAY -density 200 original.pdf grayscale.pdf
will do the job, up to a point, see below.

Making the -density parameter higher will give better output quality but at the cost of a bigger file size and you'll need lots of system memory, e.g. a -density parameter of 400 on my machine with a 15 page document took 1.2GB of memory before I quit the process.

Doing the conversion this way however has some drawbacks:
1. The conversion is, essentially, to a bitmap graphic "embedded" in a PDF so you'll lose a lot of the benefits of a "real" PDF.
2. You might find that images come out looking too dark (reflecting what utnik said above about gradation curves).

Also, I'm not sure if it will handle PDF/X-3 properly (I did a quick test and it seemed to read an X-3 file okay but outputted as 1.4, so that's not great but it could be a parameter thing) but it's probably worth a look, depending on what you want the output for and it also could come in useful for other things. For instance it can convert images en masse so it might come in useful for creating greyscale versions of your images if you need to go down that route.

P.S. You'll also need GhostScript installed for ImageMagick to handle PDFs but if you're already compiling your own version of Scribus you'll have that already.