colors considered as unused in symbols

[christophe33985803df4i]

Hi all,

I turn visuals that are provided to me into symbols to take advantage of the flexibility and security they offer.

I've just realized that when I turn a visual into a symbol (without keeping the visual in its original form) and ask to select the unused colors (in the color palette), the constituent colors of the symbol are considered unused.

In order to lighten my many files, I run a script that eliminates what is not used (including nuances) so I end up with files with visuals without color information.

Do you know a way to preserve the color of the visual when it is transformed into a symbol?

Thanks in advance

[Laura Coyle.]

Christophe, Sorry I do not have a solution, but I hadn't thought about this before. I just ran a test - it does not matter if the symbol contains global or local swatches, as long as it is a live symbol (even in use on the artboard) "select all unused" will eliminate the swatches used in the symbol. If the link has been broken to the symbol, then colors will be preserved like any other art. It makes sense that it works this way, because if you have symbols stored on the panel that are not in use and you just want to clean up your Swatches panel, symbol colors would have to be deleted manually - but if the symbols are actually in use on the artboard, it should include those in "used" colors. Maybe this is a good user voice request? https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

[Ton Frederiks]

You would expect that global colors and spot colors would be retained if used in a symbol.

When you clean up the unused colors and drag a symbol that uses a spot or global color, it still looks like that color but when you add it to your swatches it becomes black and is named "Deleted Global Color"

[Ton Frederiks]

But somehow the Symbol knows what color is used.

Create a Symbol from an object that has a spot color fill applied and drag an instance of that symbol to a CC library.

Drag it linked or embedded from the CC library into a new document, you will see the spot added to the document.

Global colors are only kept when the library item is placed embedded

[christophe33985803df4i]

Hi Laura and Ton

Thanks for your kind answers, I have just submitted the request to user voice.

To add some info, these files are shared with a team of designers and with suppliers, so not sharing the right colours references (mainly Pantone references) is not such a cool idea as we are working on licence products, and respecting the colours is one of the key point..

What is strange is that I am (only me) using Astute graphics plug in with an included cleaning tool.

When I run this tool when the symbols are done, the colours remain as “used "when it removes all other unused colours properly.

NB = I am freelance designer, that why I have decided to buy the plug in, the designer team is part of a company who do not want to buy it ( same for the suppliers) 

Thanks again for your help.

[Ton Frederiks]

Looks like the plugin does what the default behaviour should be.

Can you share the UserVoice request here so more people can vote?

[Kurt Gold]

As Ton already recommended, please share the link to your User Voice request.

Certainly, this is a serious bug.

[Ton Frederiks]

Found your feature request here (I think it should be a bug report, maybe that can be changed):

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/475...

[Ton Frederiks]

Thanks to Egor, this report has been combined with a previous one from januari 2021.