detect color in pdf

[kalos]

hello!

is it possible to detect if a pdf file has any non-black color? ie. it is not black and white?

thanks!

[Curt]

congratulations on your membership :-)
Sorry to hear you are colour blind :-(

[kalos]

anyone??

[x16wda]

what about grayscale, would that count?

[kalos]

what about grayscale, would that count?

I want to distinguish pdfs that contain black characters, lines, table borders, etc, from those containing any grayscale or other color apart from black and white

[x16wda]

OK, next question, what is the framework?  Do you want a batch utility to do this and return a result you can check, or documentation on what to look for to incorporate into a routine you are writing, or ??

[kalos]

yes, a utility or any other way to inform me that the pdf is only black and white
it would be best not to have to open the pdf (since it will be a batch process and it must be fast and quiet)
also checking the colors of its pixels, may not be accurate enough

[kalos]

anyone?

[tomos]

I'm curious why you need this kalos.

Related:
A few years back I sent a PDF for publication, it was vector "line-art" (black only) with "Black" text - it should have been treated as a one colour (Black) print, but for some reason the file insisted on been treated as full colour at their end (or maybe it was their layout software that insisted on treating it so). I dont really have much experience in this field, and the person I was dealing with at the publishers didnt really seem to be much of an expert either. We narrowed it down to the text, but couldnt figure out why it was so (as said, it was simply black text). To be honest I cant remember what exactly our solution was, we converted the file to "greyscale"/Black in some manner.

So, anyways, just curious
Also, if there is a solution, I'll certainly have a go at checking some PDFs... out of cusiousity :p

[kalos]

One purpose would be my request long time ago, to send colored pages to color printer and the black ones to b/w printer

But, moreover, now, and I have a program that outputs pdfs, and and if it has a colored element, and it means that it belongs to a certain category and must be treated specifically

For automation purposes in brief..