SVG 1.2 CMYK and spot colour support in Illustrator? (device-cmyk and icc-named-color)

[Marcharlier]

Hello all,

Are there any plans for Illustrator to support exporting SVGs that contain CMYK as well as spot colour data as per the 1.2 specification of SVG?

Some context:

I'm working on a web-based application that utilises SVG to generate PDF print files for industrial textile printing. We are using PDFlib to convert from SVG to CMYK/spot colour files. This works perfeclty fine because both our own software as well as PDFlib are following the 1.2 draft specification of SVG which supports both a `device-cmyk` as well as `icc-named-color` attribute. See more info here: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVGColor12/

We have a use case where some users would like to generate SVG files in Illustrator, where colour data should be preserved. Given the SVG spec 1.2 supports this data, it's a shame that Illustrator doesn't currently support exporting an SVG 1.2. Are there any plans for this or is anyone aware of another way to export to SVG 1.2 with support for these more advanced colour data specification attributes?

Martin

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

If you read the version history closely, you will notice that SVG 1.2 has been dropped in favour of version 2, which is currently a draft (and for the last 9 years not much has changed around this issue).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics#Version_1.x

[Test Screen Name]

CMYK doesn't work in SVG, because it's at best an optional extra; there must always be an RGB colour and the CMYK is for info only, in those apps which support it. Best to absolutely forget the idea; if CMYK vector is a must, then seek a different format.

[Marcharlier]

Thank you for your replies!

@Monika_Gause: I had indeed missed that, thank you. Having had a look through SVG 2 spec draft, it seems it is currently not accounting for named colours or cmyk colour models. What a shame.

@Test_Screen_Name: For my use case, it actually works really well: The RGB is perfect for rendering the SVG on screens in the earlier stages of my use case, but the `device-cmyk` and `icc-named-color` attributes allow me to still store additional data that is used by my conversion library (which, on the other hand, ignores the RGB). This way it's possible to go from an SVG to an print industry standard PDFs with CMYK or spot colour data. So, I think there is great potential here. It just needs to be supported more widely by apps such as Illustrator.

Thanks, both!

[Gregory22065647z3bv]

@Marcharlier I am curious what "conversion library" you are using that supports an SVG containing the icc named (spot) color to PDF conversion?  I am trying to perform an SVG to PDF conversion for Roland Printers that require a RDG_WHITE spot color.

[Marcharlier]

@Gregory22065647z3bv I'm using PDFlib https://www.pdflib.com/ 

[peterc19015888]

Hello,
Really late to the game, but one can also use Apache FOP/Batik to render SVG to pdf with icc-named-color fill properties set
E.g.

d="M0,0h181.6377868652344h0v43.22026620867311v0h-181.6377868652344h0v-43.22026620867311z"
 fill-opacity="1" fill="#008FCD icc-named-color(GraphColors, 'HKS 47 E')"