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Participant
August 20, 2025
Question

Color Changes When Copying From Illustrator To Indesign

  • August 20, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 133 views

Alright, I’m having the following problem:

If I copy a colored object, say, a simple square, that has a color value of #30b1f2, this WILL change to #30b0f2 when pasting the square in Indesign.

When I copy from Indesign to Illustrator, no changes take place. It’s only when copying from Illustrator to Indesign.

 

The following settings are the same in both documents:

– identical color space for flattening transparencies: RGB (even though no transparencies exist)
– identical sRGB as working profile (no CMYK elements whatsoever exist in my Indesign document)
– identical color conversion settings: absolute colorimetric RI, no black point conversion (even though this probably should not matter when it comes to simple colord vectors)

As I need to copy a large amount of colors, it is not feasible for me to double-check everything. The difference that occurs in the example I’ve given is not even visible—yet, the colors do absolutely have to be the intended values and not randomly different by a damn bit or two.

The most common solutions that are frequently mentioned on this forum haven’t been of much help. 
I’m really lost here.

2 replies

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 21, 2025

It is supposed to work to save as AI or PDF/X-4 and place in InDesign. Copy and paste is not recommended.

Participant
August 21, 2025

Addendum: When I tell Indesign to prefer PDF when pasting elements (via clipboard settings), then the colors at least stay correct, but I obviously can’t work with every element being a PDF.

Is this really how it’s supposed to work—never actually copying paths, colors and so forth from Illustrator to Indesign by means of the clipboard?