Pantone unavailable in Illustrator 2022

[Silent.art]

How do I update Pantone Color Palettes inillustreter  Illustrator 2022 so that missing colors can be made available (i.e.: colors 2389 & 2263 are currently unavailable via the Pantone Coated Color Library.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

Pantone Libraries have been removed from all Adobe Applications. 

You should contact Pantone.

[KMFC2]

So Adobe removes Pantone libraries. Now they raised the price of my subscription. Plus, Pantone wants $15.00/month (per the Verge) for the privilege of using Pantone colours. Which adds up to $795/year. Why should I not look at alternatives to the Adobe suite? Affinity is $65 for the Indesign equivalent app, one time payment, including Pantone colours.

[Monika Gause]

Affinit is marketed as an alternative to the Adobe Suite. If it actually is a viable alternative for you, depends on your need. Affinity Designer is far from Illustrator feature-wise. Very far.

Affinity Publisher is far from InDesign. 

On top of that: your existing documents are toast. Forget about continuing to use them. That is only possible for very simple stuff. 

Here are some details:

Affinity Publisher: Not for me - Vektorgartenhttps://www.vektorgarten.de › affinity-publisher-not-fo...

Why I'm using Illustrator - Vektorgartenhttps://www.vektorgarten.de › why-use-illustrator 

[pollan5F9E]

Is a class action lawsuit being explored against Adobe?  Based on the amounts they charge annually or such, pantone has always been included.  Pantone indicates that Adobe basically refused to pay for access to the color charts like it has all these years and that is why Adobe removed them; even indicated that they wanted it for free...

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

FYI, there's no point in even thinking about a class action suit, as it is not possible. You've waived that kind of action when agreeing to the terms and conditions to use the software. That clause has always been in the T&C pretty much since the beginning of time.

[Bobby Henderson]

IMHO, Adobe is not the "bad guy" in this situation. Pantone is the villain this time. They're the ones singling out Adobe applications to hide digital representations of their various spot, process and speciality colors behind a pay wall. I guess it's not enough that users such as myself have to blow nearly $200 for a pair of spot color swatch books roughly every year. Some bean counter decided it would be a good idea to double-charge customers.

If anything Adobe should be charging Pantone a sum of money to include their various color libraries within Adobe's applications. None of the physical, real-world products Pantone sells are cheap. Pantone actually needs those digital swatch books present within various graphics applications to help sell their physical products. The digital swatches inside the graphics applications are a form of advertising. IMHO, the choice Pantone is making is just very very stupid. I can only see their sales dropping. On top of that, I've seen lots of complaints about their "connect" service/software being buggy and not ready for prime time. That's more insult and injury to sustain for paying $180 per year just to have access to updated digital versions of a swatch book.

[Gallucci Art]

I read that pantone cmyk coated colors are still available with adobe. I use illustrator. Can you look at this to see if I'm correct in saying that? I can't figure out how to access the color book when it says to use the extension listed. 

I want to comment about why you say pantone has left adobe, because my thoughts were the same as others in thinking adobe was greedy and didn't want to pay, so we could benefit. After reading what you said, I do see it differently now. I haven't looked into paying pantone as of yet. 

[Ton Frederiks]

It is easy to just install the 2022 version (while it is still available).  You don't even have to open it to copy the color books. After that you can deinstall that version.

In the Creative Cloud app select Apps > All Apps > Illustrator > click the 3 dots …  next to the Open button >  click Other Versions and select 26.5.2

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.

[Bobby Henderson]

The last time I checked the current version of Illustrator installs with Pantone CMYK swatches included in the color books. Those are not the same as the Pantone coated and uncoated spot color books.

You can still get the Pantone spot color swatch books by installing a previous version of Illustrator and then copying (and saving) the Pantone swatch books included it in. Those can be copy/pasted into the color books folder of the current version of Illustrator. The only downside with this approach is those color books will be missing any new colors Pantone adds in the future.

I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind Pantone singling out Adobe and making them remove the Pantone color books. Pantone isn't doing the same for other graphics applications such as CorelDRAW or Affinity Designer. Their latest versions have the "V5" solid coated and uncoated spot color swatch books (among others). I'm guessing Pantone hasn't picked on those guys because it's perhaps not as easy as add or remove swatch color books as it is with Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.

[Creamer Training]

>>>I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind Pantone singling out Adobe and making them remove the Pantone color books.

It's got to be simple market share. How much money would Pantone make if the charged CorelDRAW more compared to Adobe software?

[Monika Gause]

---

@Bobby Henderson  schrieb:

I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind Pantone singling out Adobe and making them remove the Pantone color books. 

---

That's simple. Affinity doesn't even have a plugin architecture. Also: the people using it are using it for the very reason that it's not a subscription. How large are your chances to be able to sell them a .... color subscription? 

[Bobby Henderson]

I think Pantone's ploy could end up costing them more business rather than doing anything to generate revenue. I expect only a small percentage of Adobe's user base will sign up for Pantone connect accounts -and that's out of the users who actually need to use Pantone color specs in their daily graphics work. I think more of those users will "stay put" using the outdated color books for free.

It's doubtful very many who use Affinity Designer would need Pantone color swatch books. But it's better to have them and not need them than the other way around. The color books might serve as a bit of window dressing to give the application a little more pro-level prestige.

[Creamer Training]

[Moved to Illustrator forum]

I simply copied the old Swatch libraries from the prior versions to the new AI presets folder. Granted, it won't have the latest-and-greatest colors in it, but they still work.

[chrisa68544975]

How do you copy over the prior version? I have another workstation that still has the pantone solid color library.

[chrisg11235813]

Go to the old applications swatches folder, and copy the colour book you need into the new application's swatches folder.

(on a Mac)

Adobe Illustrator 2022 > Presets > en_US > Swatches > Color Books

[Creamer Training]

If you are printing as a true spot color, you can make your own spot color and try to make it look as close as possible on screen. 

[Nacho Noodles]

This is a ridiculous situation, I would never have bought a subscription if I had known that I would not be able to specify Pantone colours. All my clients use a variety of spot colours - so how do I speak the same language as the printer if I cant specify a Pantone colour...? The software is now redundant to me. I have just wasted an hour of a busy morning reinstalling the older versions of the software AND downloading the Affinity software, so that I can actually do my job. I mean Adobe, this really is DUMB!!!

[Monika Gause]

You might want to contact Pantone about this. They pulled their libraries out.

For communicating with printers about colors, what you need (and what you actually always needed) are the printed swatches books. Only they can show you how the color looks. And then you can just setup a spot color, and name it so that it communicates with the printer.

[Nacho Noodles]

Apologies if my post is construed as 'having a go' at anyone, I upgradeded Illustrator this AM and as if by magic my Pantone Swatches disappeared...no word of warning, no way of creating them accurately. So mid job, I had to waste and hour of my team reinstalling an older version so I can work on the files I created yesterday and even better - had to recreate all my settings and preferences in the older app - so another hour gone. Adobe could at least treat there subscribers with a modicum of respect, most of us are doing a job, usually under duress to get things done on budget and on time. Which is made increasingly more difficult with things like this. Yes I will approach Pantone, but if this churlish approach to their customers in indicitive of anything - I'm sure I will be wasting my time. It's their inks that are being specified here, so how do I ask a printer to use their ink, if I can't specify it? This is a Shambles on the part of both companies - and handled in a pathetic faceless corporate manner. Please sort it out.

[Monika Gause]

 It's their inks that are being specified here, so how do I ask a printer to use their ink, if I can't specify it? This is a Shambles on the part of both companies - and handled in a pathetic faceless corporate manner. Please sort it out.

By @Nacho Noodles

This is a public forum with 95% of participants not even staff.

The issue has been discussed in the public for over a year now. It has been in blogs and social media and printed magazines.

If you select a swatch from your printed Pantone book, you crate a spot color that at least roughly looks like it and name it "Pantone Whatever color number you like C or U" and then it's also a good idea to contact the printer upfront and discuss the issue with them. As always when printing spot solors.

[chrisg11235813]

The solution is simple - not ideal - but simple.

Take the books from a previous version of the software, and put them into the new version.

(on Mac)

Adobe Illustrator 2022 > Presets > en_US > Swatches > Color Books

Be sure to save these somewhere else, so you can replace them when your software updates.

ALSO:

there is absolutly nothing stopping you from creating a spot colour and naming it "PANTONE 123 C" (or whatever colour you want) and approximating the colour -- if it supposed to match a Pantone colour, tell your print provider that you are trying to match that colour. If they are at all competant, they will do the leg work to make it match. Probably for a price, but that would be the case either way.

[Duane5C13]

That did the trick. Thank you!

[Creamer Training]

This solution was posted earlier. 

[Bobby Henderson]

Like Monica said, this is Pantone's doing. Not Adobe. Pantone is the bad guy this time. They made the choice to remove digital representations of their color libraries from Adobe's applications. I think Pantone's choice to do this is bafflingly stupid. That's because those digital swatches are advertising for the real world products users also have to buy. Pantone is trying to double-dip on customers. They run a great risk of many users just choosing to opt out and use other methods for defining colors for things like branding purposes. Not everyone is designing graphics for print output.

Rival graphics applications, such as Affinity Designer and CorelDRAW do include digital vesrions of Pantone's color libraries. I haven't seen any notices from Serif or Alludo (Corel's new corporate name) regarding Pantone colors. But if Pantone can force Adobe to remove their color libraries from Adobe's applications then it should be just as easy for Pantone to demand the same action from other software vendors. The point is: there is no guarantee those Pantone color libraries are going to stick around in Affinity Designer either.

If Pantone chooses to eliminate their color libraries from applications like CorelDRAW and Affinity Designer it will just worsen what I see as a self-destructive choice. If Pantone goes as far as removing their color libraries from industry specific speciality software, like large format printing RIP applications, then I'll have no choice but to throw all my physical Pantone color books in the dumpster and not use any Pantone-related fills in artwork at all.