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Nikos Vardakis
Inspiring
October 1, 2025
Question

Math Expressions feture: Is it possible to change black color to 100% black in CMYK mode?

  • October 1, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 500 views

Hello everyone!

The Math Expression feature in InDesign could be of some help writting math equations in InDesign, but I haven't found a way to change its default RGB color to 100% black in CMYK mode.

I have tried editing the Math expression and changing the

mathcolor="#000000" to another color, but the color is converted to RGB.

I tried changing the Fill Color form the Typeface Properties in Math Expression panel, but still nothing. 

No matter what color or method I try to use, when I export it to pdf, it converts it to RGB.

 

I want to export the whole book to CMYK, with only black/grayscale colors.

I don't want to use the Preflight option in Acrobat to convert all colors to Black/Grayscale.

 

If the Math Expressions tool does not support CMYk colors, then, I believe, it is useless!!

 

Any help, would be appreciated!

 

Thanks!

Nikos

2 replies

G
Gord@APL
Inspiring
October 1, 2025

The issue appears to be that Math Expression builds the expression as an SVG, and SVG doesn't support CMYK.

 

I've played about with this and found that one can copy the Math Expression from InDesign into Illustrator, fix the colour (and remove the extraneous clipping masks) there, then copy the resulting vector back into InDesign... but that feels like a clumsy and time-consuming workaround when creating a large number of expressions.

 

If there was a way, within InDesign, to expand the SVG into editable vector elements, that would remove the necessity to copy into Illustrator, but it would also remove the ability to easily edit the expression.

N
Nikos VardakisAuthor
Inspiring
October 1, 2025

Hello @Gord@APL!

Yes, I have already tried that one too! The problem is that, if you want to edit an equation, you will have to do it all over again!

For now, I keep an editable copy of each equation outside the document margins, and then place an outlined copy with 100% black colour, inside my text!

I hope an update will have the option to change color mode to CMYK...

davecourtemanche
davecourtemanche
Inspiring
October 1, 2025

Hi Nikos

Can you export the PDF / convert to destination and use a grayscale preset? That seemed to convert to K only for me.

    Abhishek Rao
    Community Manager
    Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 1, 2025

    Hi @Nikos Vardakis,

     

    Thanks for sharing the details. I am checking this with the product team and will update you here as soon as I have more information.

    Appreciate your patience in the meantime.

     

    Looking forward to sharing an update with you soon.

    Abhishek

    N
    Nikos VardakisAuthor
    Inspiring
    October 1, 2025

    Thank you @Abhishek Rao!

    I will be waiting...

    Abhishek Rao
    Community Manager
    Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 1, 2025

    Hi @Nikos Vardakis,

     

    Thanks for your patience. I checked with the product team, and at present, the Math Expressions feature renders the objects as SVGs, which only support RGB. This is why the color always converts back to RGB even if you set it to 100% black. CMYK support is not available for Math Expressions right now.

    The current workaround is to copy the Math Expression into Illustrator, adjust the color to 100% black there, and then bring it back into InDesign, or to apply a Preflight fixup in Acrobat after export to convert it.

    Could you also share your use case with me, so I can pass it along to the team? That will help them better understand the need.

     

    Looking forward to your update.

    Abhishek

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