The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for the processing of a mixed color document. The mixed color document is preferably a digital structured document containing metadata, such as e.g. a PDF document. The mixed color document is split into at least a first part to be processed in a first processing channel and into at least a second part to be processed in a second, color-dedicated, processing channel. In executing the splitting judgement, color functionality rather than bare color content is taken into account.