Invert PDF colors — dark mode for any PDF
Turn a PDF into white text on black — dark mode for a paper, a manual or a slide deck you read at night. The text stays real, selectable text, and the file barely grows. It is done in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Fit Meter
Settings appear once you add a PDF.
Flatten only if a viewer or printer shows the original colors: every page becomes a picture, so the text can no longer be selected.
Advanced 2
Still going. Your own device is doing this, so a long scan or a big batch takes as long as it takes — and none of it is being uploaded.
Bytes of your files sent anywhere: 0 B · nothing leaves this tab
Every request this page makes is listed as it happens. You’ll see our own code loading, and for some formats a codec engine, but never your file going out.
- Waiting for network activity…
Check it yourself: open your browser’s developer tools on the Network tab, or turn off Wi-Fi once the page has loaded. The tools keep working.
How to invert the colors of a PDF
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Add your PDFs
Drop the PDF. The preview shows page 1 inverted before you commit.
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Check the settings
Keep the text selectable (the default), or flatten the pages to images for an old viewer that ignores the effect.
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Save the result
Save. White becomes black, black becomes white, and every color flips to its opposite.
Why it doesn’t upload
The PDFs people want in dark mode are the ones they read for hours — textbooks, research papers, contracts under review. Inverting one is a matter of drawing one shape over each page, which your own browser can do without the file going anywhere.
Check it in your browser’s Network tabWorth knowing
- Every color is inverted, photographs included, so pictures look like film negatives. That is what inverting means; a viewer’s own dark mode is the choice if you want photos left alone.
- Form fields, comments and highlights sit on top of the page and keep their original colors.
- The selectable version relies on a standard PDF blend effect. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Acrobat and Apple Preview all show it; a few old viewers and some printers ignore it and show the original — use Flatten to images for those.
- Printing an inverted PDF uses far more ink or toner, since the page is mostly black. Invert for screens, not for paper.
Under the hood
What happens to your file
A white sheet is painted under each page, then a white rectangle is drawn over it with the Difference blend mode, which turns every color into its opposite as the page is displayed. The page’s own content is untouched, so text stays text. The flattened option renders each page with pdf.js, inverts the pixels and embeds the result as an image.
Reference: ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0)
Questions
How do I make a PDF dark mode?
Drop the PDF here and press Invert colors. You get a copy with white text on a black background that stays dark in every viewer, on every device — unlike a reader’s night mode, which only applies inside that one app.
Will I still be able to select and search the text?
Yes, with Keep text selectable (the default). The page’s content is untouched; one full-page layer inverts how it is displayed. Only Flatten to images turns pages into pictures.
Can I invert just some pages?
Yes. Under Advanced, type the pages, like 2-30 to leave a cover alone.
Why do the photos look strange?
Inverting flips every color, so photos turn into negatives. For a document that is mostly photos, inverting is rarely what you want.
Does inverting save ink when printing?
No — the opposite. A white page becomes a black one, which is the most ink a page can use. To save ink, print the original in black and white instead.
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