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Changing PDF Background Color in PDF-XChange Editor

PDF-Xchange is a feature packed and very customizable PDF viewer and editor. Tracker Software however discontinued PDF-XChange Viewer and now offer PDF-XChange Editor in its place.

The two products are very much alike it’s only that the Editor is more feature-packed and includes an updated interface (ribbon menu & touch optimized UI). The PDF Editing features however require one to buy a licence, otherwise the rest of the features are free.

That said, for what we want to do here today you don’t have to upgrade to the new PDF Editor. The features we’ll be making use of are exactly the same in both.

Personally I got interested in changing the background color of PDF as I realized the bright white that’s universally used in PDFs is very hard on the eyes. It’s simply not the best experience especially when reading a book without a blue light filter.

Fortunately, PDF-Xchange does provide us with options to customize the background and font colors.

This is however temporary and does not change the actual background color in the PDF. It merely overrides the colors used.

To change the actual background color, editing the PDF is necessary. You can do this on PDF-XChange Editor by going to Organize > Background > Add > From Color.

This particular feature however requires a license to use, otherwise DEMO stamps are going to be placed on the if you save the document on the free version.

Likewise, the colors cannot be overridden if the PDF is composed of images, such as scanned documents.

Customize PDF Background Color

  1. Go to the program’s preferences by pressing Ctrl+K on your keyboard.
  2. In the settings category, click on Accessibility.
    A screenshot showing PDF-Xchange preferences menu.
  3. At the top, enable the option Override Document Colors.
    A screenshot showing PDF-Xchange accessibility options.
  4. Now we can use a pre-defined color scheme, or we can create one for ourselves. The pre-defined ones include one that adapts to the color scheme you use on Windows and then a couple of high-contrast schemes (Green Text on Black Background, Yellow Text on Black Background etc.).
  5. To create a custom color scheme, just select your color preferences under Page Background color and Text color. If your PDF has lines, you can also set the colors for the Line Art.
  6. After you’re done defining the colors, click on the Apply button then Ok. If you had a PDF opened, the new color scheme should take effect. From now on every PDF you open will use that color scheme.
  7. To toggle the color scheme on or off while reading any document, just use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+6. Alternatively, you can add a toggle button in the toolbar by opening the Customize Toolbars… option, go to the Commands tab then search for Override Document Colors. You can then drag the command anywhere you want it in the toolbar.

Defining a Color Scheme

I’ve found that black text on warm background colors (e.g. beige, light orange, gold, rose, light yellow etc.) works best for me. I also tend to highlight PDFs and these schemes work well with that.

With these colors you don’t have to worry about some elements not being visible if the original background is in white, which is typically the case for most PDFs.

A screenshot showing the accessibility options in PDF Viewer
Accessibility options in the old PDF Viewer

A black background with white text will give you a proper dark mode, however some elements may not be visible and highlighting will be rendered useless.

To avoid this, you can enable the option Change the color of black text or Line Art only. This option will make the highlights (when original text is in black) and line art visible when using dark backgrounds.

If you find this option renders some elements invisible, disable it and consider using grayish backgrounds as a compromise for total black.

Now, if you’re like me, you may also consider going a step further and changing the color scheme of the program’s UI.

UPDATE: PDF-XChange version 9 has added a dark mode feature for the program’s UI. To activate it, go to Preferences > Customize UI > Theme and either set it to Black or check the option ‘Allow dark mode from System‘ if you’re using the dark mode on Windows.

This way you can have an overall color scheme or a night-mode as it’s in my case. To do that, in the Preferences go to Customize UI and select the colors you wish for the Window, Text, Face etc.

A Dark Gray/Black for Window, White/Light Gray for Text and Dark Gray/Black for Face as shown below yields a night mode which, when combined with a warm PDF color background, makes for a reading experience that’s very easy on the eyes.

A screenshot showing a customized dark mode of PDF-Xchange Editor
Customized “Night-Mode” UI in PDF-Xchange Editor

You can play around with the colors and find what works best for you. There’s a Reset button there should you wish to revert to the original scheme. Cheers!

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14 Comments

  1. is there a way to do this only for certain pages within a document? i don’t want to change every page, or every pdf i have open.

    1. Kelvin Administrator

      Hi Nader, that’s not possible. I think you’ll have to edit the PDF to change the colour for only specific pages.

  2. You have just change my life. So many months of routine editing documents instead of just exploring the soft I’ve been having all this time.

  3. Thanks Kelvin
    I knew about the page accessibility but didn’t realise about UI.
    It would be great if PDF xchange release a proper Dark theme because when we do manually change UI to dark the icons of many buttons are quite dark & hard to see because of their colours!
    If only there was way to change colour scheme for icons!

    1. Kelvin Administrator

      You’re most welcome!
      Usually, I only use this when reading books, so I rarely encounter icons in the PDFs. Nevertheless, a proper dark mode like in the android PDF reader I use (Librera PRO) would be a lifesaver for everyday use.

  4. Thank you for this great detail explanation!
    I just upgraded to the newest build – and found their new feature in Customize UI (changing Themes and Allow Dark Mode from System
    Also, it’s possible to change background color Organize->Background->Add (Source: from Color).

    P.S. This Editor looks fantastic and full packed with features

    1. Kelvin Administrator

      Thank you for the update regarding the new build. The dark mode for the toolbars looks fantastic. Indeed, it’s possible to change the background color on the Organize page, that’s actually the permanent way unlike the temporary override I shared. You’ll need a license for that though, otherwise the document will be overlaid with DEMO stamps. The license is however well worth the price considering all the features PDF-XChange has to offer.

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Kelvin Kathia

Kelvin Kathia is a writer that's passionate about sharing solutions to everyday tech problems. He's the founder and editor of Journey Bytes, a tech blog and web design agency. Feel free to leave him comments or questions regarding this post, or by leaving him a message on the contact page. If you found his content helpful, a donation is much appreciated.