Preparing an Illustrator document for four color printing

[ltooke]

Hi, I'm looking for some help! I'm designing a full color brochure, and was told by the printer that I need to save the black text as "black" and NOT CMYK like the rest of the color mode. How do I do that?? TIA!

[Monika Gause]

Color management nees to be set up properly.

The document color mode must be CMYK

The text must have Black 100% applied. Do not set it to Multiply. If you want to make sure there is no issue with registration, set it to overprint.

When exporting a PDF, make sure to not mess up color.

Everyone of these items is a full chapter of textbook learning. So maybe you want to get some professional help doing this.

[marliton]

Hi. If you're working with a CMYK document, you can use the Black swatch. That Swatch composition is 0C 0M 0Y 100k.

[ltooke]

Thanks Marliton, but the printer specifically said to use BLACK, and not CMYK. He's being prickly because he wasn';t asked to design this brochure as he was the previous one, so is not being very helpful. I don't do a lot of work that is this complicated of a printing, so my experience is not much help. I guess I don't know how you can choose a different type of color in CMYK color mode.

[SJRiegel]

to break it down: CMYK = Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK. Those are the four inks you printer will use on the press to print your file. That should be the color mode of your document. What you printer is asking is that you set your text to use a swatch (in CMYK mode) that will use black ink only, not a color mixed from all of the colors.