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Change PDF Background Colour

Tint the paper behind the content. Free, and runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded, stored or sent to a server.

About PDF Background Colour

Tints the paper behind the content: a cream background for comfortable reading, a pale grey for a draft, a warm sepia for something meant to look old.

It works by replacing pixels that are near enough to white, which is why there is a tolerance rather than a switch. A pure export is exactly white and needs no tolerance at all; a scan's paper is a dozen shades of nearly-white and needs a generous one. Raise it until the whole page tints; lower it if pale content is being repainted along with the background.

Anything that is genuinely white and not background — a white logo on a coloured panel, a knocked-out heading — is repainted too, because at the pixel level there is nothing to distinguish it. On most documents that never comes up; on a design-heavy one it will.

Where it helps

  • A tolerance rather than a guess, so it works on a clean export and on a scan.
  • Any colour, with the preview showing the real result.
  • Only the pages you name are rendered.
  • The document never leaves your browser.

Limits

  • White content that is not background — a knocked-out logo, white text on a coloured block — is repainted too.
  • The text becomes an image and can no longer be searched or selected.
  • A dark tint behind black text makes it less legible, not more; keep it pale.
  • The file is usually several times larger than the original.
  • Links, bookmarks and form fields do not survive the rebuild.

Frequently asked questions

Why is only part of the page tinted?

The tolerance is too low for this document's white. A scan's paper varies; raise the tolerance until the whole sheet takes the colour.

Why did my white logo change colour?

Because it is white, and at the pixel level a white logo and white paper are the same thing. Lower the tolerance if the logo is slightly off-white; otherwise this tool cannot tell them apart.

Is this the same as a watermark?

No. A watermark draws something on top; this repaints what is behind. A tint also survives greyscale printing, where a pale watermark usually disappears.

Does it help with reading strain?

Many people find a warm off-white easier than bright white on a backlit screen. It is worth trying at low tint values — and it is worth remembering that a reader's own night mode does it without rebuilding the file.

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