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InDesign: Unable to delete unused color swatches

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
March 21, 2018
8 replies
23712 views

This happens a lot. I attempt to remove unused swatches, and some can't be deleted, the trash icon grayed out in the Swatches panel. This has happened from CS6 through the current CC 2018 build of InDesign and includes jobs with no linked assets. I know I'm not alone because this issue is shared by many in my workplace. Help?

Correct answer winterm

Is it a spot color used in a placed graphic? Link removed, but color is still undeletable? Worth to try then:

1. Create an AI file with the offending swatch used. 2. Place that file in InDesign. 3. Delete it from InDesign. 4. Now check if the swatch is still undeletable.

If it is, check this post for other possible solutions (read comments, too). You may find the one which will work for you.

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Lucia2602540685zv

Participant

Hijacking this old post incase anyone is still looking. Is it a spot color used in a placed graphic? You have to open the graphic and delete the swatch from the Illustrator panel and re-place the graphic in Indesign.

In INDD Copy graphic / Cut / DELETE THE SWATCH / then paste in place (Graphic), it will place it without carrying the swatch name from Illustrator to your Indd swatches.

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Anne Marie38619211umw7

Participant

I am having the same problem, but the only graphics in the document are grayscale images. The color is a Pantone spot color, and I no longer have access to Pantone colors, which I suspect is what is causing the problem. I have changed all the color in the document to CMYK but cannot delete the Pantone swatch, even though I search the swatch and it says it is not used.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @Anne Marie38619211umw7 , You can get the Pantone .acb libraries here:

https://github.com/Autocrit/Pantone-color-libraries

They get installed here: Applications⁩ ▸ ⁨Adobe InDesign 20XX⁩ ▸ ⁨Presets⁩ ▸ ⁨Swatch Libraries⁩

If that doesn’t work can you share your file saved as an .IDML?

pamelar61363267

Participant

Same problem, the option to delete swatches not avaiable. Finally discovered (by process of page elimination) that all the undelete-able swatches were linked to "PDF" files within the document. Not sure why/how only few of the PDF's brought the swatch listing ( maybe spots colors in the PDFs?) . Deleted the offending PDFs then able to delete all un-needed swatches 🙂

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kamilica7

Participant

Had the same problem! The solution is quite simple in the end (for me at least).

I had some images in psd format in my document. Turned out I saved them in Duotone mode, which is what made indesign confused. Changed the mode of all Duotone images to either RGB or CMYK in photoshop and refreshed them all in indesign. The swatch could then be deleted.

My guess is that indesign somehow links these duotone images to the first swatch that was predominantly used in your document, but I have no idea how or why.

Anyway, hope it worked out for everyone 🙂

bb60209573

Participant

Save you Indesign document as IDML.
Rename IDML to ZIP.
Open ZIP
Go to "Resources"
Open "Graphics.xml"
Search for your color swap
Change "ColorEditable" and "ColorRemovable" to "true"
Save XML and ZIP
Rename ZIP to IDML
Open IDML and save as INDD

Only solution that worked for me

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bretts21640563

Known Participant

This is encouraging - at least there is a pathway.

I'll test soon on one of my trouble files, and Im hopeful this will do the trick.

Thanks!

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Laubender

Community Expert

bretts21640563 wrote
This is encouraging - at least there is a pathway.
I'll test soon on one of my trouble files, and Im hopeful this will do the trick.
Thanks!

Hi bretts21640563 ,

when on Windows it's straight forward to change contents of XML files inside a packaged IDML file.

You will not need to unpackage the file, you could edit and save XML files inside the package.

Not so on Mac OS X.

There you'll need a special app for editing inside like Springy or perhaps BetterZip.

Or packaging again after unzipping the IDML package.

Be careful what you do with your IDML file.

Best do a backup before editing.

Here a weird example where I set a false for a true with attribute ColorEditable in Graphic.xml for one of InDesign's default swatches:

And here the same where I changed ColorRemovable to "false" to the same swatch.

As you can see now the trash bin is grayed out when selecting the swatch:

Regards,
Uwe

D

Dan Byer

Inspiring

I've had this problem off and on for years and just ran into it again in CC2019. The easy fix that worked this time: Create a new, blank page at the end of the document, use the pages panel to select all the other pages and delete them, leaving just that one blank page. The swatch became deletable since there was nothing else in the document, and undo to brought all the pages back. The swatch came back too, but it was still deletable!

If you're really desperate and if none of these other tricks work, the surefire way to get rid of those swatches is to export to IDML and edit the XML to remove the swatches or tag them as editable. I don't remember the exact chunk of code you're looking for, but an app like BBEdit makes it easy to search for and fine the swatch lines by name.

C

Christina5C27

Participant

Thank you - this worked for me!

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bretts21640563

Known Participant

I'm saddened to see that the "Correct answer" for this post is 'submit your file to Adobe for evaluation.'

A correct answer would be a solution that can be implemented by users experiencing the problem, ideally without a complex workaround.

I get it that InDesign is wanting to protect color swatches that exist in placed graphics from not be deleted and leading to other issues -- that is a good thing. It's the inability to force a delete that is problematic, especially when the color isn't included in a linked graphic.

Like others on this thread, I'm having the same issue, and it is propagated to hundreds/thousands of documents. Purging this has been a difficult issue for quite some time.

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pixeltechAuthor

Known Participant

This issue is not resolved. Sending files to Adobe has so far yielded no resolution. I moved the issue to uservoice but it isn't getting any traction there either.

The issue doesn't prevent files from printing correctly and the persistent swatches don't generate ink plates, so I wouldn't consider this functionally critical, even though it has propagated to thousands of layouts. It's just a glaring bug that I see every time I clean up a file for release.

Beda735

Participant

1. Maak een AI-bestand met de gebruikte overtredende staal. 2. Plaats dat bestand in InDesign. 3. Verwijder het uit InDesign. 4. Controleer nu of het staal nog steeds niet verwijderbaar is.

Monica Singh

Adobe Employee

Hi Pixeltech

Please log this issue at Adobe InDesign: Bugs: Hot (800 ideas) – Adobe InDesign Feedback and share your files, we will investigate this issue further.

Thanks

Monica Singh

P

pixeltechAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you Monica! I posted the issue with a sample file.

wintermCorrect answer

Legend

Is it a spot color used in a placed graphic? Link removed, but color is still undeletable? Worth to try then:

1. Create an AI file with the offending swatch used. 2. Place that file in InDesign. 3. Delete it from InDesign. 4. Now check if the swatch is still undeletable.

If it is, check this post for other possible solutions (read comments, too). You may find the one which will work for you.

Beda735

Participant

I search almost a half year for this solution, thank you

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