Change PDF background color
Give a PDF a cream, sepia or any background color — easier on the eyes, like a reading overlay — while the text stays black and selectable. Works on typed PDFs and scans. Nothing is uploaded.
Change PDF Background Color
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Settings appear once you add a PDF.
Your settings are saved on this device.
Advanced 2
Tint the page works on everything, scans included, but tints photos too. Only behind the text leaves photos and colored boxes alone, but can’t show through a page that paints its own white (most scans).
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- Any color Cream, sepia, peach, mint, sky, gray, or your own — for reading, printing or slides.
- Text stays text Black stays black and every word stays selectable and searchable.
- 100% private The PDF is recolored in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
How to change the background color of a PDF
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Add your PDFs: Drop the PDF. The preview shows page 1 with the new background before you commit.
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Check the settings: Pick cream, sepia, peach, mint, sky or gray, or choose your own color.
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Save the result: Save. The white of every page takes the color; text, lines and dark ink stay as they were.
Why it doesn’t upload
People recolor the PDFs they spend hours with — textbooks, papers, contracts under review — often because a white page is hard on their eyes. Changing a background is one shape drawn on each page, which your browser does itself, without the document going anywhere.
Check it in your browser’s Network tabWorth knowing
- Tint the page colors everything light on the page, photographs included — a light sky in a photo takes on the tint. Choose Only behind the text (under Advanced) to leave photos alone on typed PDFs.
- Only behind the text can’t show through a page that paints its own white background, which most scans and many slide exports do; use Tint the page for those.
- Form fields, comments and highlights sit on top of the page and keep their own colors.
- For a dark background with white text, use Invert PDF Colors instead: a dark tint here would darken the text with it.
Under the hood
What happens to your file
The color is one rectangle per page, added with pdf-lib. Tint the page draws it over the page with the Multiply blend mode, so white takes the color and black stays black; Only behind the text inserts it as the first thing the page draws, under everything else. The page’s own content is not changed, so text stays selectable and the file barely grows.
Reference: pdf-lib documentation · ISO 32000-2, 11.3.5 Blend mode
Why change the background color of a PDF?
A bright white page is hard to read for long stretches, and for some readers — people with dyslexia or visual stress — a tinted background makes text noticeably easier to follow. E-readers offer sepia for the same reason. A PDF can’t switch theme on its own, so the color has to be put into the file.
Here it is added as one shape per page, blended so the paper takes the color and the ink stays black: text stays selectable, the file barely grows, and it works in every viewer. Nothing is uploaded.
Common reasons to give a PDF a colored background
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Easier long reading
Cream or sepia for textbooks, papers and novels read for hours on a screen.
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Reading overlays
A mint, sky or cream tint, like a colored overlay, for readers who find it easier than white.
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Printing on a tint
Give handouts or certificates a soft background color before printing.
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Slides and worksheets
Separate sections of a pack by color, or make a worksheet stand out.
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Less glare at night
A gray or cream page is gentler than white when full dark mode is too much.
Tips for changing a PDF background color
- Keep colors light: the tint multiplies with everything on the page, so a dark color darkens the text too.
- For white text on black, use Invert PDF Colors instead.
- Photos tinted too much? Choose Only behind the text under Advanced (typed PDFs only).
- Type a page range under Advanced to color only some pages, such as section dividers.
- To remove color instead, PDF to Black and White makes pages grayscale.
Questions
How do I change the background color of a PDF?
Drop the PDF here, pick a color, and save. Every page’s white takes the color; the text stays black and selectable.
What background color is easiest to read?
Dyslexia style guidance from the British Dyslexia Association suggests cream or a soft pastel instead of white, and a 2017 study (Rello and Bigham) found warm tints such as peach helped people with and without dyslexia read. Preference is personal, so the preview lets you compare before saving.
Will the text still be searchable?
Yes. The color is drawn as a single shape on each page; nothing is turned into a picture, so text stays selectable and searchable.
Does it work on a scanned PDF?
Yes, with Tint the page (the default): the scanned paper takes the color and the ink stays dark.
Can I make the background black?
Use Invert PDF Colors for that: it turns white to black and black text to white. A black tint here would hide the text.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The color is added in your browser and the file never leaves your device.