Need to change PMS colors in 200 files - Help!?

[PeterD-NJ]

Hi all,

I have about 200 Illustrator files that are part of an InDesign document and I have a problem. When I created each of these files a few years ago I wasn't sure which PMS spot color book I should have been working out of. I chose uncoated, but I chose poorly, and my printer said I needed to use solid coated for them to reproduce correctly. So now I'm facing a very daunting challenge.

Each of the 200 files has some combination of 14 distinct PMS values that need to be converted from the old color to the new color (for example, PMS 185U to PMS 185C, etc). About half the documents  only have maybe 2 or 3 colors and will be easy to fix, but the other half will contain many instances of most of the 14 colors.

Any idea how I can do this? I'm extremely confused about setting up swatch libraries--for every document I will work with in Illustrator (existing and new) I will need these new "coated" colors, so I will need to make the color library permanent and persistant, so it always shows up. I'm Waaaaay out of my depth here and in a bit of a panic. Any help greatly appreciated. Please and thanks! 
Note: Using AI 2022 under Windows 11.

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

There is no need to change the spot colors in the Illustrator files.

You mentioned that they were part of an InDesign document and that is where you can change them into another spot color.

Create the new spot swatches in the InDesign document that contains the Illustrator files.

In the menu of the Swatches Panel select > Ink Manager...

Select the old Pantone color and from the Ink Alias menu choose the new one.

Repeat as necessary.

[PeterD-NJ]

Hello Ton,
So am I to understand that just mapping the alias will result in the correct color going to the printer? The attached .jpeg file is how I have it set up now. Is this correct?

[Ton Frederiks]

Mapping looks ok.

Yes the correct color name will be used during separation.

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/inks-separations-screen-frequency.html

[PeterD-NJ]

I need to add one thing to this: The document is printed digitally on a Konica-Minolta 1100 high-speed machine, not on an offset press. No actual physical inks are involved in production. When they ran the document earlier this month the colors looks muted and off and their production editor said to leave the colors as PMS, but use coated values, and set the PDF export's output settings at "No color conversion, and don't include profiles."

[Ton Frederiks]

If they can handle the spot colors, it should be ok, only the new spots get exported to the pdf.

[PeterD-NJ]

OK, that sounds great. But even with that said, as I edit each of the 200 documents in the coming year I will still try to convert them over to the new values when I can, but at least I know there's a good workaround. Thanks!!

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that helped.

Maybe there is a scripter in the Indesign forum that can help you automate this.