Pantone solid coated missing

[Sachin27185524c5pd]

Pantone solid coated missing in illustrator 2023.

[Noeland]

Yes, I know. I'm just documenting and detailing the whole pantone connect experience here now. I contacted pantone before coming here and have not heard back from their customer service. I got several 404 pages when trying to use the links on the site. It would be laughable if it wasn't putting me behind schedule.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

There are Pantone V4 acb available for download from various sites which include the last update to Pantone's color library (2019). You could download and install temporarily to get you by until Pantone cleans up their act.

[Bobby Henderson]

My guess is some "bright" new bean-counter hired at Pantone came up with the brilliant idea to effectively double charge its customers. IMHO, this is one of the flat-out most stupid, idiotic things I've ever seen a graphics-related company do. The digital versions of Pantone color swatches are absolutely worthless to anyone who doesn't have a physical, real-world swatch book corresponding with the same colors. The digital swatches help sell the physical color swatch books. The digital swatches are practically a form of advertising. This situation will give many users all that much more incentive to use only RGB or CMYK colors in their artwork and bypass the whole Pantone thing entirely.

This Pantone issue is creating a big, stupid mess. Previously it wasn't going to matter to us if a customer provided Illustrator file had Pantone-based fills applied to the artwork. Going forward it's going to be a compatibility issue. Not everyone will have backed up copies of Pantone color books from a previous version of Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign to re-use in current versions. They'll see trouble receiving artwork with any kind of Pantone spot color fills. Those who choose to pay $15 per month to get access to newer Pantone colors will have a file compatibility adventure if they need to send artwork to another vendor. Not everyone is going to get on this Pantone Premium train.

I'm not sold on this Pantone thing. A physical Color Formula Guide with coated and uncoated swatch books costs upwards of $200. I don't want to pay another $180 per year on top of that just to have a digital equivalent of it in Illustrator. That's a rip-off. If I do get in a position where a client is insisting on using some brand new Pantone color I'm going to tell the client that color will cost extra. I'm not eating that cost.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

My two cents, I think Pantone lept way before they looked and did not have a) the infrastructure or b) the software to handle the conversion once Adobe was forced to remove the books. The fact that they had over a year (publicly announced) to come up with plans and solutions and still tripped at the starting line was the first worrying sign. To date, they still do not have an acceptable enterprise solution in place for larger companies!

The current issue for users is you either have to use one of the documented workarounds or basically trudge through the mud (polite term) using spotty software until Pantone can fix. Adobe for their part has put out workarounds to help users, but their hands are tied.

Pantone's issue is I don't think the adoption rate is where they expected it to be so... less capital income = less money to allocate to development = longer wait times to fix bugs. It's a loss/expense I don't know if the company can bear long-term.

The obvious solution is a mea culpa and going back to Adobe for full integration into the Creative Cloud. I have my doubts that a) Adobe will want them back and could move on to their own solution  b) unsure how Pantone would unroll all this and handle the outcry for subscription refunds and the blow back from the industry.

I really am starting to think this could be the beginning of the end for Pantone.

[Bobby Henderson]

@Kevin Stohlmeyer I agree, this indeed could be the beginning of the end for Pantone. I imagine some people still get print production jobs done using real spot color plates in addition to CMYK or just K. But I imagine those numbers are declining. We have to simulate those spot colors in our large format printing and other production work.

I still haven't seen any indication that Pantone will go after other graphics software companies the same way they did with Adobe. I know CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer include the various Pantone color books (CorelDRAW includes "V4" and "previous version" copies of those spot color books). Our large format printing RIP applications (Onyx Thrive and RasterLink Pro) also have versions of those color libraries. Is Pantone going to go after them too? I have no idea how I would export a swatch book from Pantone's Connect service to place into Onyx Thrive. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure how I would do that with CorelDRAW!

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@Bobby Henderson The thing Pantone wont tell you is they don't own the colors (copyright) they own the name "Pantone" so you could take your clients spot color request, use the book to find the formula and enter the swatch manually. All legal and doesn't cost a dime (just the time to enter). Others have taken this a huge step further and created versions of the Pantone libraries with a different name available for download. Same color formula just renamed.

[Noeland]

Exactly. I've never needed a physical copy of the pantone book before today. For the last 20 years I have been able to use the digital version inside illustrator with no issues whatsoever. The physical copy was something the printers used out on the floor to mix and match ink before printing a job. Many times a day I reference pantone spot colors inside client provided files to assign the needed spot colors to create print accurate proofs, and then make separations for printing. It's an age old print shop workflow system. It was simple and it worked well.

[Bobby Henderson]

@Noeland, we've always had to have physical copies of Pantone's spot color swatch books on hand to compare to various sign production materials. In the past the Pantone spot color books were handy to cross reference against translucent and high performance vinyl colors from 3M, Gerber, Avery, etc. There aren't very many color choices in acrylic sheets; a Pantone book can help make the nearest, best guess. We've used intermix paint systems (Lacryl previously, Matthews now) that have formulas for simulating most Pantone spot colors. But you can't tell how accurate the paint mix really is without having a Pantone swatch book for comparison.

Over the past decade we've gotten heavy into large format print work. Some printers have extra inks (like light cyan and light magenta) to boost the gamut range. The RIP software works in conjunction with the printer to better hit a Pantone reference color target. That's going to be a mess going forward unless we can manage to just stick with using "legacy" Pantone colors. In the future I can see us having to switch over to something like L*a*b instead.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

We have large format printers that have the Pantone system built into the software and tout "99% accuracy" when using Pantone spot colors. Those 12 colors in the printer do make a difference!

[Noeland]

I cancelled my trial today. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do moving forward with my clients, but we will figure it out without pantone connect.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

I would start by installing the Pantone V4 acb files using the workaround steps outlined by Adobe.

That at least will get you the current Pantone library. If they add another 16 colors sometime in the near future, you can always add them manually if someone requires it.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html

[arnoldw49810256]

This is crazy, feels like they're putting loyal pantone users into a choke hold and taking their art departments hostage with this move.. I actually like the color conversion aspect of Connect, it uses lab to convert CMYK colors into the closest match pantone colors. I found it to be more accurate than recoloring art in AI, or PS. Maybe they should have focused on that aspect of the software and marketed it as a more accurate, but optional color matching app, I honestly would have got that for our team and chopped it up to a worthwhile business expense. That being said, using it for Solid Coated/Uncoated color libraries is a workflow nightmare. It's buggy, but it also just flat out sucks. You have to manually add pantone colors as swatches and then recolor from swatch rather than connect, if you click the pantone color in connect it recolors your art as a CMYK color. What a stupid stupid way to design this.. not to mention the headache when your pre press team runs RIP softwares. Hope they come to their senses here.    

[Ton Frederiks]

Install (or go to if still installed) an older version of Illustrator like 2022 (CC app > Apps > All Apps > Illustrator > click the 3 dots … > Other Versions)

Go the Illustrator 2022 Application folder > Presets > (your language folder) > Swatches > Color Books > and make a copy of PANTONE+ Solid Coated.acb and PANTONE+ Solid Uncoated.acb 

Keep them in a safe place and copy them to the same location in the Illustrator 2023 application folder.

Alernatively; search for them on the web.

[Raja5D1E]

Thanks Mr.Ton Frederiks,

Its working...

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think Pantone appears grossly out of touch with ploy to price gouge anyone using Pantone colors as a reference in their workflow. The printed swatch books already cost a lot of money. But they want to charge the same for virtual digital versions of the swatch books too? They're ignoring some realities out in the real world.

First, their timing with this price gouge is really terrible. High inflation on so many things has the economy danger-close to a recession. Big economic down-turns are BAD for the advertising industry. Pantone wants an extra $180 per year per machine from graphics people at a time when they may be forced to cut a lot of costs.

Then there's this broader problem: over the past 20+ years I've seen a great deal of deprofessionalization in the graphics industry. So much client art and elements I receive for billboard faces, vehicle wraps, etc are from people who are entirely self-taught at doing graphics work. Their "training" was basically learning how to navigate the user interface of Photoshop and/or Illustrator and that's all. Their artwork is usually RGB-based and will often include all sorts of rookie mistakes that generate a frustrating back and forth cycle with the client to get the stuff right. And it typically ends up with me wasting lots of valuable time trying to repair their "artwork."

Does Pantone actually think they're going to grow their market via all these amateur users? They'll see the $180 price tag for that buggy "connect" subscription along with the nearly $200 price for a pair of Pantone Formula Guide swatch books and just say, "no thanks." They'll stick to coloring everything up in RGB (no matter how far out of CMYK gamut range those colors might be).

Actual professional users will have to be very careful specifying newer Pantone colors. It's clear a bunch of other professional users will stick to using older digital swatches. So there is bound to be a big disconnect from one person to the next when they trade graphics files among each other. The situation is just a big, stupid mess. And it's one Pantone could have avoided. It seems fitting their connect software is rife with problems. It seems as badly thought-thru as their shake-down of Adobe.

[RillyGud]

OMG this is the worst and the total icing on my horrible day. Can someone please post a link to download the older pantone swatch book. Yes this is a nightmare. And new swatch books are not only expensive but us designers know these colors after working with them for so many years. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The easiest way to get the libraries is to follow @Monika Gause's advice in this thread, posted 11/24/22.

[RillyGud]

I was being lazy. I downloaded the older version and pulled it out. Thanks all you helpers for helping 🙂

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@RillyGud You should check for the Pantone V4 series of acb files that were released in 2019. That is the last time Pantone updated their colors. You can find them available for download from various design sites.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer · Accepted solution]

@Anubhav M - you marked an answer as correct with outdated information. The current Pantone information is displayed on this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html

[Anubhav M]

Hello @Kevin Stohlmeyer,

Thanks for sharing the article. I have marked yours as the correct answer.

Anubhav

[Raja5D1E]

I am facing the same -  Plaese support 

[Monika Gause]

I am facing the same -  Plaese support 

By @Raja5D1E

You can get them from an earlier version. There are instructions in this long thread.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Please follow the answers giving in this post. This link explains how to reinstall them from previous versions. https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html