How to change a colour swatch in one place and see that swatch change in 20 other documents?

Question

After an hour of googling and trying a couple of suggestions on how to do this - I've tried using CC Libraries and saving out a .ase file - I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, nothing has worked, and now I'm wasting a lot of time. Thus I must ask here and hope that an AI expert can help me, even if the answer is that it isn't possible to do what I need so that I can just stop trying/looking.

Illustrator v30.1

Windows 11

I have 20 different Illustrator files. Each one has a geological diagram in it with a lot of polygon fills, lines, and text labels - suffice to say they're complex images. My client wants to change the colours in the legend, and right now I'm having to go through and change that colour in every document one by one. I feel like surely there's a better way of being able to just change the colour swatch once somewhere and have that change apply across all of the other documents in real time.

Google's AI answer implies that this functionality is found in the CC libraries, but I've created a library and when I change the colour in the library the change isn't even relfected in the current open file, let alone other files when I open them to check if the colour changed. Perhaps I'm just missing a critical step? I converted my test colour swatch to a Global Spot Colour because I needed them to having meaningful names in the CC library not just hex numbers.

Is it possible to do this? Change a colour swatch in one location and see that colour change reflected across all 20 documents so that the colour swatches have all updated and therefore any objects with that swatch applied to them will also change?

Please let me know if there are any more details you need me to supply!

bluebrad · Accepted Answer

I have been asking for the same exact feature so that I can have a swatch library that will dynamically update if I update that swatch library. But the current method that works is you would have to create a master document and then from that master document you import just the swatches and then you apply the swatch colors to all documents individually.
And if you want, you can also make a library document that you upload to your Creative Cloud library and use that. Instead of having it on your computer. This is the method I use below.

Correct method that actually works

Create a master file, Make one Illustrator file that exists only to store colors. Example: Brand_Swatches.ai
Create Global Swatches In that file, open Swatches panel, Create your colors, Double-click each swatch, Check Global
Save the file
Import swatches into other documents Open another document
Swatches panel menu → Open Swatch Library → Other Library
Select Brand_Swatches.ai
Add those swatches to the document
Use ONLY those global swatches, All artwork must use the swatches directly, No custom colors, No RGB sliders, No copied fills
When a color changes , Edit the swatch in each document ,The change updates all objects in that document instantly.

Would love to see there be a. Branding library that you can create. So that when you import swatches or any other graphic styles into a document, if I update that graphic style in my main document, it updates it across all the other documents that I have it linked to. That would be the best feature, but that doesn't currently exist.

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