Color

The color picker, saved swatches, spot colors and the ink manager, registering patterns, and previewing print color with soft proofing and separations.

Color picker

Click a color well in the Attributes tab (fill, stroke, text color, text stroke …) to open the color picker panel. Drag its title bar to move it. Clicking outside does not close it, so you can look at the canvas while choosing.

1. Choose how to define the color in the tabs at the top — RGB (saturation/brightness square, hue bar, R, G, B and Hex fields), CMYK (four ink sliders), Gray (K ink density), Spot (pick from the spot color book) or Swatches (saved colors).
2. Set the color. With Preview on (the default), the object shows it immediately. If you turn it off, that setting is remembered next time.
3. Click Apply. The color is committed to the object only through Apply; Cancel or Esc restores the original.

At the bottom of the panel:

• Eyedropper (pick a color from the screen) — click anywhere on the screen to pick up that color. The button appears only in browsers that support it (Chrome, Edge and others).
• The swatch row — Add current color to swatches keeps frequently used colors in the panel. Click to apply, Alt+click to remove. These swatches are stored in this browser only.

When several selected objects have different colors, the color well shows Mixed; picking a color applies it to all of them.

An RGB color outside the printable range loses saturation when converted to CMYK for print. A warning mark at the bottom of the panel tells you and, when clicked, converts it to the ink values that will actually print.

Related questions

• How do I change a color?
• I picked a color but it wasn't applied
• I want to pick a color from the screen
• How do I enter a color as CMYK values?

Swatches

Swatches are saved in the document so the same color can be used on many objects.

1. Open the Swatches tab of the color picker.
2. Click New swatch (+) and enter a name in Swatch name (e.g. Brand Blue). It starts with the current color; adjust the values. Leave the Spot box off for a Process swatch, which is mixed into the CMYK plates and adds no plate; turn Spot on to add a plate with that name.
3. Click Add. The new swatch becomes the current color. Clicking a swatch in the list picks its color; Apply commits it.
4. To edit a swatch, hover its row and click Edit Swatch (the pencil), change the name or values and click Save. To remove it, click Delete Swatch (the trash can) in that edit form and confirm with Delete. If the swatch is in use, you are told how many places use it and asked what to replace it with. Process color keeps the swatch's CMYK values and drops its plate; another swatch replaces it at the same tint. Objects, text and text styles all change, and a single Undo brings them back.

When you change a swatch's name or CMYK values, the objects, spot colors in text and text styles that use it follow the new name and values, keeping their tint. A single Undo reverts this too.

With a long list, use Search swatches… to find a name.

Related questions

• How do I save a color I use often?
• Are panel swatches and document swatches different?
• Does deleting a swatch remove the color from objects?
• If I rename or edit a swatch, do objects using it update?

Spot colors

A spot color is a named ink printed separately from the four CMYK inks (PANTONE, for example). Colors defined as spot colors go into the PDF as a plate with that name.

• Pick colors from the spot color book on the Spot tab of the color picker. If there are several books, choose one in the list at the top. A spot color you pick is added to the document swatches. Use Search spot colors… to search by name; long lists show only the first 300, so search.
• If you are told there is no spot color book, upload an .ase or .csv book under Spot Color Books in the web portal. An uploaded book goes into documents created afterwards.
• For a spot color that is not in the book, create a new Spot swatch on the Swatches tab. Its name is the separation name.
• Lowering the ink density, as with K ink density (100% = black), prints the same plate lighter and does not add a plate.

Related questions

• How do I define a spot color?
• I want to use a Pantone color
• It says there is no spot color book

Ink manager

With nothing selected, click the Ink Manager — number of plates and how spot colors are handled button in the View section of the Attributes tab to open the Ink Manager. It shows the inks the document uses and the number of output plates, and lets you decide how spot colors are output. It affects output only; the document's colors and the screen are unchanged.

• For each spot color choose Spot (own plate), Convert to process to mix it into the CMYK plates, or merge it into another spot color (→ Merge into {{name}}).
• Turn on Print all spot colors as process to output only the four CMYK plates, with no spot plates.
• The plate count is summarized at the bottom. In an RGB document there are no separations — set Document Setup › Print › Color mode to CMYK.

Related questions

• How do I print a spot color as CMYK?
• How do I see how many plates my PDF has?
• I want to merge two spot colors into one plate

Registering and loading patterns

Register the outline of shapes you drew as a pattern, and use it as the motif of a pattern fill or pattern stroke.

Registering

1. Select the shapes to use as the motif (rectangles, ellipses, polygons, Bézier paths, title text, or groups of these). Several shapes become one motif. If text frames, image frames, tables or lines are mixed in, the menu item does not appear.
2. Right-click › Register Pattern › User... or Document.... User... patterns can be used in all your documents; Document... patterns only in this document.
3. Enter a Pattern name and click Register. Only the outline is used; the color comes from the Pattern color or Color where the pattern is used.

Using it in a fill or stroke

1. Select an object and set Fill Style or Stroke Style in the Attributes tab to Pattern.
2. The Pattern row has the built-in motifs (Circle, Star, Heart) and a folder button, Load pattern…. Click it to open the Load Pattern gallery.
3. Click a registered pattern on the Document or User tab. Choosing a User pattern copies it into the document, and the document uses that copy.

Patterns used in the document are marked In use on the gallery's Document tab and cannot be deleted. Change the objects that use it to another pattern first.

Turning a pattern into a shape

Right-click an empty spot on the canvas › Load Pattern... and choose a pattern: its shape is placed where you clicked as a black-filled Bézier path (100 pt on the long side). If that spot is off the page, it goes to the center of the first page. This does not copy an account pattern into the document.

Related questions

• Can I make a custom pattern from my own artwork?
• Where do I load a pattern I registered?
• I can't delete a pattern from the gallery

Soft proofing and separation preview

Preview the colors as they will print. The document's Color mode (Document Setup › Print) must be CMYK.

1. With nothing selected, turn on the soft-proof button in the View section of the Attributes tab. Screen colors change to how they will print through the CMYK output profile.
2. A Separations Preview section appears below the View section. Toggle plates with Hide this plate and Show this plate, or view a single plate with Show only this plate (press again to turn the preview off). A single plate is shown as black ink density.
3. Turn on Overprint Preview to see objects set to overprint blended with the inks beneath.
4. Off in the Separations Preview section header ends the preview.

Soft proofing needs an ICC file for the CMYK output profile. If there is none, a notice appears — choose a profile with an ICC file under Document Setup › Color Profiles or upload one in the web portal.

Related questions

• How do I preview print colors?
• The separation preview doesn't appear
• I want to see just one ink plate