Pantone solid coated missing

[Sachin27185524c5pd]

Pantone solid coated missing in illustrator 2023.

[Ton Frederiks]

See: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-color-books-illustrator.html

And: https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/pantone-solid-coated/m-p/13348709#M343771

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Please refer to this: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-color-books-illustrator.html

You can still install a slightly older version and dig out the color books from it.

[Jolie218443837673]

God bless you!

[MarkGr1f]

This is a complete ****show!!

In my part of the world, every printer uses Pantone Solid C/U as a colour reference. Hence the reason it (was) included in every adobe print-related product. What the hell are we to do now? Has anyone actually tried the complete joke of an extension Pantone has uploaded to Adobe Exchange?? It's effectively a webview that forces you to pay a subscription. Slow, ugly, doesn't always work and is a nightmare for workflow.

I don't, in theory, mind paying for Pantone colour libraries, we already have their physical colour books. But for the love of god PLEASE give us a better integration!

[Monika Gause]

Please install the still available older version of Illustrator. Grab the Pantone libraries from there and copy them to your new version.

Locations of things in Illustrator: https://www.vektorgarten.de/illustrator-settings.html

[MarkGr1f]

After I calmed down a bit.... I figured that out 🙂
You can also find more up-to-date .acb files on the net.

[michaelh49405850]

what version of illustrator do I need to revert back to grab the old pantone books? I'm on 27.0.1 now. 

[Monika Gause]

26 should work.

[7Mod2]

This is not good for us as a printer using this for year and didn't get this update.  Adobe should fix this issue.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

To be clear this is not an Adobe "Issue" this was Pantone pulling support from Creative Cloud and going it alone with their Pantone Connect plugin (a paid subscription). Your complaint should be directed there.

As a printer - there were many notifications given by Adobe prior to you updating your software. If you didn't pay attention to them, then I'm not sure what else could be done.

As others have posted, you can either subscribe to Pantone Connect or download and manually install the .acb books from previous Pantone offerings.

[scalkins22]

Maybe printers were notified, but I don't recall a notification either, unless it was buried in a massive amount of fine print. You're reply to that person was a bit sarcastic saying "…if you didn't pay attention…" People are looking to forums for help and assistance, not sarcastic comments.

[mtvessell]

I was able to copy the SOLID COATED and SOLID UNOCATED books from an earlier Illustrator version into the current version. I am able to access the SOLID COATED color swatches, but it will not allow me to use them within my artwork. This is such BS.

[Monika Gause]

Please tell us what you did step by step.

People on this forum are not responsible for whatever happened here. Just trying to help in our spare time.

[7Mod2]

Great thanks.  

[Noeland]

I'm guessing that whoever was responsible for this at Pantone, pulling this license, had zero idea what they were actually going to be doing to thousands of print shop art departments who use the solid coated and solid uncoated swatches all day every day to work. Creating a subscription plug in was an absolutely terrible idea. I'm sure this was a bottom line decision from Pantone. I hate it. It's making my job incredibly difficult today. But corps do this. They do not care.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Have you tried the workaround suggested by Adobe to install the color books from previous builds?

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

[Noeland]

Unfortunately that does not work for me. I have to use updated pantone color books for my clients, as that is what they are using. So I'm going to give Pantone Connect a real try. So far, it works fine. I hate that I have to pay for something this simple, but like I said it's a bottom line decision that I'm certain will make Pantone truckloads of money.

[Noeland]

Well, this is fun. I get that any new system will have bugs, but this is such a simple thing. Today when I tried using pantone connect I can't get the sign in to work through illustrator, while I can on the website. I tried to reset my password through illustrator and it tells me it can't reset the password. So a service I paid a lot of money for is not working on the second day I try using it. Pantone needs to rethink this whole thing. What a complete nightmare.

[Noeland]

Oh, wait, now the sign in on the website is not functioning either. Home run pantone. Home run.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

You should be posting these with Pantone so it can get some traction - you're preaching to the choir here.

[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.