Editing swatches - no way to tell which Pantone color is current

[DaleH]

How do I keep track of which Pantone color I have assigned to a swatch that I keep revising?

The Question is:

I have created a named swatch (spot color) in Illustrator and used it throughout the drawing. To do so, I “option-dragged” a Pantone swatch onto the new swatch.

When I look at the Swatch Options for the new swatch, all I see is the LAB description for the Pantone color, no reference to the Pantone color.

This makes it awkward when I want to specify to the printer which Pantone colors were used in the drawing.

In Quark XPress, no matter what I name the swatch, I can see which Pantone color it refers to.

[Bill Silbert]

If you've used a PANTONE swatch for a particular color then the name of it should be right there in the Swatch panel. If your intent is to use that as a spot color that means that the printer will use that color ink to print any instances of that color using a plate that has only that color or tints of the same. In that case all you need to know is what the name of it is which should be clearly on the swatch. If your question is about providing the correct up to date CMYK breakdown for your PANTONE colors you should be picking from one of the PANTONE Color Bridge libraries. Choosing your process colors from one of these libraries will give you the best possible breakdowns to simulate the ink color when printed.

[DaleH]

My swatch begins as one Pantone color.

I rename the swatch to conform with the parts of the drawing it will be applied to, overwriting the Pantone Name.

The only description of the color is a LAB formula.

I decide to change the Pantone color this named swatch refers to by "option-dragging" another swatch on top of it.

Again, I can't tell what Pantone color this actually is since the only reference is a LAB formula.

[Bill Silbert]

If you option-drag another swatch on top of the first its name should change to the new swatch. If you're dragging a new PANTONE on top of the old one then it will get the name of the new swatch and become that color.

I'm not sure how you've been renaming your colors since that option is greyed out when book color is showing and the lab values are there. The only way to change the name of the swatch is to change the color mode from the default to one of the other modes which means that you have the choice of CMYK, RGB etc.

Bottom line is that if you are using a PANTONE color and you want to ultimately use it as a spot color and you really want to somehow identify it relative to your drawing then keep its original name and add a suffix to it like "PANTONE 300_leg color". Then you will always know what you have.

[DaleH]

I start by selecting "New Swatch" which I name whatever I want.

Color Type is Spot Color.

The color the swatch starts out with is not important because I will change it. All I want to do is establish a Color Name that I can keep consistent throughout the project.

I realize that if I drag a Pantone Swatch from the Pantone Book onto the Swatches Pallet it will be Book Color Mode and the name of the swatch will be the name of the Pantone Color which I can't change.

If I drag a Pantone Book Swatch onto my named swatch, the name stays the same and the color is described in LAB.

Maybe there is a LAB > Pantone conversion table.

I guess the question should be not how to make swatch Names stay the same while I change the Pantone color they refer to.

I should be asking if there is a "Color Style" approach to this problem. I looked into Graphic Styles but could not see a way to change attributes within the style.

[Bill Silbert]

If at the point that you drag a PANTONE swatch over an established swatch (I assume that you are holding the option key on a mac or the alt key on a PC) then yes the name of your original swatch stays the same while its color changes to the PANTONE's color and all instances of it in your art change to the new color as well. Meanwhile the PANTONE swatch is still there. At this point you can select first the PANTONE and then your renamed swatch and then under the swatch panel pull-down menu you can choose "Merge Swatches". This will then produce just one swatch that is correctly named. This way there is no mystery as to what PANTONE color your swatch actually is. Also you can then take this swatch and by changing its color mode the name will no longer be greyed out and you can add a suffix to it for identification in your drawing as I described in my earlier post.

[Mike_Gondek]

DaleH  wrote

I guess the question should be not how to make swatch Names stay the same while I change the Pantone color they refer to.

Forget about Quark, there is no reference to what the color used to be in Adobe CS. A name of a color does not matter  except that it is unique so you don't have swatch conflicts. If you need to create new Pantone colors, do not option drag, the colors are already defined in your swatch libraries..

Solid coated is the most popular book. The other option are if you print on uncoated stock, or want to print proess and have a physical copy of the Pantone CMYK book.

[@mj]

Illustrator allows for the combinations of multiple color models. So you can do a CMYK / Pantone mix if you wanted.

By default the name is grayed out.

You have to deliberately choose a color model you would like to use.

HTH

[Ton Frederiks]

I do not understand your workflow, if you want to communicate the name of the Pantone color, just use that Pantone color.

But you can let Illustrator find out which Pantone color was behind the Lab values.

Just fill an object with your named swatch (don't give it a stroke).

Select it and choose: Edit > Edit Colors > recolor Artwork

Choose by Preset : 1 color job...

Select the Pantone library you want.

Click OK and the Pantone swatch with the same Lab values will be added to you Swatches panel.

[DaleH]

My workflow for this project:

It's a two color job, colors not nailed down but they will be Pantone.

Call them Color A, and Color B

The drawing consists of hundreds of elements with a combination of fill/stroke pairs.

Groupings, masks, Blends are employed.

I begin with a stand - in Pantone spot color for each A and B.

Later on, I want to swap the Pantone colors out with new numbers from the Pantone book without going through the drawing and reassigning the replacement colors.

Ton, I will give your "recolor Artwork" instructions a try.

[Mike_Gondek]

To swap out the pantone colors with new numbers is easily done using the swatches fly out > merge swatches.

The first color you click will be your final destination color,  Command click to add  swatches that you want to replace, then merge swatches.

Recolor Artwork can also do this and more, but is a little more complex, and you really only need merge swatches to do this.

[Ton Frederiks]

That sounds a little different from what I understand from your original question.

I understood that you wanted to find out which Pantone color had those Lab values.

Then Recolor Artwork can do the trick.

If you just want to swap your Placeholder spot by a specific Pantone color:

Add the Pantone Color to your Swatches.

Select it.

Hold down the Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Win) key and click on the placeholder Color Swatch.

Choose Merge Swatches from the Swatches fly out menu