Invert PDF Colors

To change a PDF into dark mode, add your file to the box above, pick a look such as Black or Dark grey, and press Invert colors. White pages become dark and black text becomes light. You get a new PDF that you can read at night, share or keep. Your original file is not changed.

Most of the work happens in your browser, on your own device. The file is not uploaded. You can change all pages or only some, add up to 20 PDFs at once and download them together in one ZIP. A small preview of page 1 shows the result before you start.

Most PDFs are black text on a bright white page. That is fine on paper, but on a screen in a dark room the white page is like a lamp pointed at your eyes. A PDF dark mode converter flips the page so the background is dark and the text is light, which many people find calmer to read, especially late in the evening.

Many apps have a dark mode for their menus, but the PDF page itself often stays white. Some readers can show pages in dark colours, but only inside that one app and only on that one device. When you change the file, the dark page goes with it. It looks the same on your laptop, your tablet and your phone, and you can send it to a friend who reads at night too.

It also works the other way. Some files are made with a dark background on purpose, like slides, code printouts or scans of old film. You can turn those into normal dark text on white paper, which is easier to print and easier to read in daylight.

A dark mode PDF for reading is simply a copy of your file with the colours turned around. Nothing is retyped and nothing is lost. The words, page numbers, links and layout are the same as before, only the colours of the page change. You can keep both copies: the dark one on your phone for evening reading, and the normal one for printing and sharing at work or school.

There are two ways to change the colours, and you choose in the How card. Both give you a normal PDF. The difference is what happens to the text inside it.

Keep text sharp is the default. The tool adds one full-page colour layer over each page with a PDF blend mode called Difference. This layer flips white to black and black to white when the page is shown. The text underneath is not touched, so it stays vector: sharp at any zoom, selectable, searchable and copyable. The file size barely grows. This is how you invert PDF colors without losing quality.

The catch is that the viewer must understand blend modes. Adobe Reader, Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Preview on a Mac show the layer correctly. Some simple apps and some e-readers ignore it and show the original white page. If that happens, use the second mode.

Pages as pictures redraws every page as an image at 100, 150, 200 or 300 DPI, inverts the pixels and builds a new PDF from those images. It looks exactly the same in every app, every e-reader and every printer. The downside is that the text becomes part of the picture, so you can no longer select, search or copy it, and the file can be larger.

People often ask how to invert PDF colors for printing, and the answer depends on what the file looks like now. If the PDF has a dark background, like slides with a black theme or a code export, printing it as it is uses a lot of ink or toner and often gives a smudgy result. Invert it, and the background becomes white with dark text. The printer only has to put ink where the letters are.

For printing, choose Pages as pictures at 200 or 300 DPI. Printers do not always handle blend modes, and a picture is printed exactly as you see it. If you only want to print a few slides, choose Some pages and type the page numbers, so the rest stays as it was.

Do the opposite with care. A normal white page that you invert becomes a black page, and printing that uses a huge amount of ink. Dark versions are meant for screens. Keep the original for paper.

The simplest change is to invert PDF colors black to white: black text becomes white, the white page becomes black, and grey becomes the opposite grey. Choose the Black look for exactly this. Colours are flipped to their opposites too, so red becomes cyan, blue becomes yellow and green becomes pink.

If you want white text on black but would rather lose the colours, first turn the file grey with PDF to Black and White, then invert it here. Charts and coloured headings then become clean shades of grey on black, which some people find calmer to read.

This page also works as a PDF dark mode to light mode converter. Inverting is the same step both ways: a dark page with light text comes out as a light page with dark text. So if someone sent you slides with a black background, or a report exported from an app in dark mode, add it and press Invert colors with the Black look.

Do not choose Warm night or Dark grey for this, because those looks are made to give a dark result. Black gives a clean, pure white page when the original background was pure black. If the original was dark grey, the new background will be very light grey, which still reads like normal paper.

To convert dark PDF to white background, use the Black look. A dark background becomes white, and light text becomes dark. Coloured text and lines turn into their opposite colours, which is usually fine for reading and printing.

This is helpful for code printouts, terminal logs saved as PDF, dark slide decks, and screenshots of apps in dark mode. It also helps with scanned photographic negatives and with copies of microfilm, where the page is dark and the writing is light.

If a few pages already have a white background, choose Some pages and list only the dark ones, for example 1-4, 9. The other pages are copied into the new PDF unchanged, so the whole document ends up light.

A scan is a picture of a page, so you can invert colors of scanned PDF files just like any other PDF. Both modes work. Keep text sharp keeps the scanned images as they are and adds the colour layer on top. Pages as pictures redraws each scan, inverted, at the DPI you choose.

Scans of old books, faded receipts and photocopies often have a grey or yellow background. Inverted, that background becomes dark grey rather than black, which is still comfortable to read. If you want a cleaner result, make the scan pure black and white first with PDF to Black and White, then invert it here.

Some scans are already dark: microfilm copies, negative prints from old copiers and some archive files show white writing on black. Inverting them gives normal dark text on a light page. If the scanned PDF has a text layer from OCR, that text stays selectable in Keep text sharp mode.

Inverting changes every colour on the page, not just the text and background. Photos are inverted too, so they look like film negatives: faces turn blue-green and skies turn orange. Logos and charts get their opposite colours.

For text-heavy documents this does not matter much. For a document full of photos, consider inverting only the text pages with Some pages, or use the Sepia (light) look, which keeps photos recognisable while making the page softer.

By default every page is inverted. To change only some pages, choose Some pages and type the page numbers, such as 1-3, 7, 10-end. Pages that are not on the list are copied into the new PDF exactly as they were.

This is useful when a document mixes styles, for example a report with a dark cover and white inner pages, or slides where only a few have a black background. Invert just those pages, and the whole file looks even.

Add up to 20 PDFs at a time, each up to 100 MB. The same look and mode are used for all of them. The new files keep their names with -inverted added at the end, for example notes-inverted.pdf. You can switch this off under More options.

With one file you get a single PDF. With several, you can download each one separately or all of them in one ZIP. To join them into one long document first, use Merge PDF, then invert the merged file.

You can invert PDF colors free here, with no account, no watermark and no daily limit on the number of files. Up to 20 PDFs fit in one batch, each up to 100 MB. If you have more, simply run another batch.

When you invert PDF colors online, many sites upload your file to their server, do the work there and send it back. Here the change is made inside your own browser, which is faster for big files and keeps private documents on your device. There is no waiting in a queue, and the speed depends only on your computer or phone.

There is no trial and nothing to install. The page runs in any modern browser on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, Android and iPhone. The site is supported by a few ads, so the tool itself stays free.

The tool works on iPhone, iPad and Android in the browser, with nothing to install. Tap Select PDF files and pick a PDF from Files, Google Drive or your downloads. Choose a look, tap Invert colors, then Download.

Many phone PDF apps, such as Apple Books and some e-readers, do not show blend modes. For reading in those apps, choose Pages as pictures at 150 DPI. In Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Adobe Acrobat on a phone, Keep text sharp works fine.

Some PDFs are locked with a password. The tool shows a password box on the file's row. Type the password and press Unlock. A locked PDF is opened on our server only to remove the lock, over an encrypted connection, and is deleted right after. Then the colours are changed in your browser as usual.

If you do not know the password, the file cannot be opened. Ask the person who sent it. To remove a known password for good, use Unlock PDF.

Your PDF is not uploaded. Opening the file, drawing the preview, adding the colour layer or redrawing the pages, and building the ZIP all happen in your browser, on your device. That matters for contracts, bank statements, medical letters and private notes.

The only exception is a password-protected PDF. It is sent to our server to remove the lock, over an encrypted connection, and deleted right after. Nothing else leaves your device, and nobody else can see your files.

In Keep text sharp mode, the tool opens your PDF and adds a white rectangle the size of the page on top of each chosen page, set to the Difference blend mode. Difference subtracts colours, so white minus white becomes black and white minus black becomes white. For Dark grey and Warm night, one or two more layers tint the result and lift the black to a softer shade. The original text and images underneath stay untouched.

In Pages as pictures mode, each chosen page is drawn into an image at the DPI you chose. Every pixel is then flipped, or tinted for sepia, and the image is placed back on a page of the same size. Pages you did not choose are copied across unchanged.

In both modes, the result is a new PDF. Your original file is not changed, so you can always go back to it.

Try the looks on the preview first. The difference between Black and Dark grey is easy to see on page 1, and it takes one tap to switch.

Keep text sharp is right for most readers on a computer or phone. Switch to Pages as pictures only if your app shows the white page, or if you plan to print.

For long reading, lower contrast is often more comfortable. Dark grey or Warm night with your screen brightness turned down works well for many people.

If your eyes get tired, take short breaks as well. A dark page helps many people, but looking away from the screen every 20 minutes or so helps too. Many phones and laptops also have a night light setting that removes some blue light from the whole screen, and it works well together with a dark PDF.

For papers and books with many diagrams, try one chapter first. Line drawings and charts usually look fine inverted, but colour charts change their colours, so a legend may no longer match what you remember. If that matters, keep the original open next to the dark copy.

Keep the original. The dark copy is for reading, the original is for printing, signing and sending to others who expect a normal page.

Once you have a dark PDF, you can do more with it. Use Split PDF to keep only the chapters you need, or Rotate PDF to fix sideways pages before you read. If you want images of the dark pages, for a slide or a post, use PDF to JPG.

To make one tall image you can scroll through on a phone, use PDF to Long Image. To make the file smaller for sending, use Compress PDF.