How can I print to .tif from word, or at least convert PDFs to .tif?

.tif and .tiff are exactly the same file type. Just as .jpg and .jpeg are exactly the same.

As Kappy explained, all you have to do with the TIFF you save is to highlight the file and change the name from doc.tiff to doc.tif. Though it shouldn't make a bit of difference which way you send it. There is literally no difference between the two, other than one letter of the file name. That the company you create these for will only accept files ending in .tif tells me they either aren't very bright, or are using a very old system that doesn't understand four character file extensions.

If I remember correctly, the ability to use a four character extension was added to Windows with Win 98. Could have been Win 95. Anywho, there isn't an easy way to get to a TIFF from Word since it has no option to output a raster file type. It's going to require multiple steps.

The first step is to save the document from Word as a PDF. Office 2011 and 2016 for sure have this option right in its own menus. You can't really do much with the rest of the file types it offers. At least not as easily as a PDF.

The free Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is no help at all. It can't save or export a TIFF. The full version of Acrobat DC isn't helpful, either. I can set it to output a Grayscale, 200 dpi, LZW compressed TIFF, but it does so without any anti-aliasing, and it looks like it. Garbage.

Preview will turn a PDF into a very nice TIFF, but will only do so as an RGB file. You can select 200 dpi and LZW compression for the output, but not a color space. But at least you're partway there. You would then need to process the resulting .tiff file again to change it to Grayscale. You can't do this in Preview. With the converted TIFF open, and then choosing Tools > Assign Profile, it will only let you select other RGB profiles on your drive.

If you have Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, GIMP, or some other raster editor, you can open the TIFF in that app, convert to grayscale, and save it. It's been ages since I used Graphic Converter, but that can likely convert the TIFF from RGB to Grayscale.

Forgot to add. If you do have Photoshop or PS Elements, you can open the PDF right into the app. It will ask what you want to do with it. Use these settings:

Click OK. The image will open as a floating layer and will be transparent wherever it's white. Go to the Layers palette and choose to flatten the image. Then save it as a TIFF.

Don't worry about the Byte Order. That hasn't made a difference for well over a decade. Nice part, too, is that Photoshop defaults to .tif as the extension. No need to rename the file afterwards to remove the extra f.

You can change the extension to .tif with an Automator workflow saved as an application:

Just drop the folder containing the image files or the image files themselves onto the app and the .tiff will be changed to .tif.

I've not tried, but load it into Preview, then try exporting it to other formats. I know it does jpegs. You can do .tiff by removing one of the "f"s. Has no impact on the content. The 3 letter extent is for Windows which won't accept a 4 letter extent.

You can't use Preview to change the resolution or color mode to greyscale, but it can export TIFF files as LZW, if you choose Export option from File menu.

Think you need to use something like Photoshop.

One thing you could do, but this is not very easy but requires a scanner and a printed page the scanner can handle - print the document on a piece of paper and then scan it in with Image Capture.app program - in there you can set the color mode to greyscale (either 256grays or thousands of grays) and set the resolution to 200dpi and (LZW compression for TIFF is automatic). You will also need to find out from whoever you're giving the files to whether 256 grays or thousands of grays are the setting they need - one is 8-bit greyscale and the other is 16-bit greyscale. Image Capture produces LZW compressed TIFF files by default

Still have to do the change of "filename.tiff" to "filename.tif" to make windows happy.

In my opinion you need to find another printing company who is a bit more flexible on what format file they can accept - they are the ones that should have Photoshop and be very adept at converting from one file format to another instead of making you jump thru all these hoops. If that is not an option, then you need to get something like Photoshop or perhaps GraphicConverter from Lemke Software - both have demo's you can download to see which you prefer. Photoshop is perhaps overkill for what you want and is much more expensive, but it does a lot of things that GraphicConvertor isn't capable of. Up to you to decide...

Good luck...

I don't think you fully understand the requirements of your printing company, or it is very project specific. Maybe you could post a link.

Nobody at the print company is going to demand tiff be changed to tif, it makes no sense.

I am quite surprised they don't except the PDF. PDF's by default are vector files and easily scale without losing clarity, even a 100kb file blown up to banner size print can be stunningly clear and printer ready.

Tif files on the other hand are rastor files and at 200 dpi ( very low) your resolution is quite limited.

And to add to that…🙂

There's no purpose saving the TIFF as a 16 bit file. It only serves to create a larger file, which is not needed here (or for just about any raster image).

The only need for a 16 bit image is if you plan on doing some very massive color moves to it. An 8 bit image will pixelate/band in places doing this. A 16 bit image won't. But you also need to create the original image as 16 bit for this to work. Converting what was originally an 8 bit image to 16 bit will not give you the same result, or latitude.

Apparently GraphicConverter 10 will import a PDF. But, although it gives the option to import it as greyscale, that doesn't seem to work. Still have to convert it once it's open. I guess it's time to drop Lemke a note. 😎

OK. I found lots of solutions on Google. Do a search for "convert pdf to .tif on OS X."

Just to add to what has been said…

1. tiff and tif are one and the same.

2. GraphicConverter can convert an RGB tiff to 8bit or 16bit greyscale.

I forgot to mention, I had no trouble opening 200dpi greyscale tiffs or tifs with LZW compression in Windows.