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Question

CC2020 indesign SVG CMYK color support?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
November 6, 2019
10 replies
9689 views

Thank you for supporting SVG in indesign cc2020.

By the way, SVG is basically RGB, but I know that the spec supports CMYK.

I want to know whether SVG supports CMYK color in cc2020.

Thank you.

Import and export

Marcharlier

Participant

Hi all,

This thread seems to have come to a conclusion. But I thought I would cross-post a link to a thread I just opened with a similar question for Illustrator.

In short: SVG 1.2 spec supports `device-cmyk` as well as `icc-named-color` which are useful attributes when creating a printable PDF for factories from an SVG (using a conversion library such as PDFlib). However, Adobe tools seemingly don't support creating SVG in the 1.2 spec (which is from 2009, albeit it being still a "draft"). I wondered if there are any plans for this - in my case, this spec of SVG is incredibly powerful to enable web-based applications that can still lead to files for industrial printing.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/svg-1-2-cmyk-and-spot-colour-support-in-illustrator-device-cmyk-and-icc-named-color/m-p/11106268?page=1#M175587

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi yaws,

I think your question was very clear.

And the answer is after all the tests we did:

InDesign will not work with any CMYK values in SVG files placed.

If a RGB color is given as fall back it will use the RGB values.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

SVG is NOT A CMYK FORMAT. I will repeat that. It seems that because of a design accident you can specify 4-component ICC profiles, and hence CMYK colorants, but there must always be an RGB equivalent. But this design accident should not fool anyone into thinking that it is a CMYK format. Refer back to my quote from the specification. By design, and as required, the transparency space MUST be RGB, and gradients must be blended in RGB. So, this would be a way of specifying colorants for a very specific and limited closed workflow - without transparency or gradients.

Now imagine trying to use a format in prepress that is "CMYK except for gradients. Oh and CMYK except for transparency. Oh, and RGB in every app except this one.". This would cause havoc, and wild unpredictability, so I would say it would be a mistake for anyone to either try to use or try to implement CMYK in SVG. No, it is an RGB format, and will remain so unless or until a future SVG format changes that.

W

wsy29118807Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your answers.

As you pointed out, I misunderstood that there was a color mode in InDesign.

Still my distress was not solved.

And my question was not clear.
Here is a simple example. I want to express CMYK (1,0,0,0), cyan100% in SVG. And the InDesign CC2020 wondered if it was possible.

The reason for this is that the SVG specification allows for the replacement of RGB values with CMYK.
fill = "# 00A0E0 device-cmyk (1.00, 0.00, 0.00, 0.00)"

And I'm not interested in whether RGB color and CMYK color are visually similar. I'm just wondering if InDesign can read the input CMYK values.

At first, I thought that there was a corresponding expression between RGB and CMYK. But I found this almost impossible.

Perhaps this issue arises when creating web-based print publishing solutions.

Is it difficult to apply SVG alternative CMYK color in Adobe Indesign?

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi yaws,

Mac OS X Preview app reverts to fallback color Black, because it will not interpret any fill color right, not the device-cmyk, not the #00A0E0 entry. The same with Firefox browser on Windows 10:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi yaws,

thank you for the SVG code:

<svg version="1.2" baseProfile="tiny" id="Ebene_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
	 x="0px" y="0px" viewBox="0 0 100 100" xml:space="preserve">
<rect fill="#00A0E0 device-cmyk(1.00, 0.00, 0.00, 0.00)" width="100" height="100"/>
</svg>

What happens here is, that InDesign is seeing a rectangle filled with color #00A0E0.

The device-cmyk entries are ignored. InDesign is using the RGB fallback.

FWIW: InDesign is also ignoring the viewBox entry "0 0 100 100".

It will honor x, y, width and height if that is defined in the same line with the viewBox entry.

Now edited with a different fill ( device-cmyk unchanged )

<svg version="1.2" baseProfile="tiny" id="Ebene_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
x="0" y="0" width="100" height="100" viewBox="0 0 100 100" xml:space="preserve">
<rect fill="#FF0000 device-cmyk(1.00, 0.00, 0.00, 0.00)" width="100" height="100"/>
</svg>

On the left your code placed:

On the right your code placed with the changes I did with fill and the added width and height values:

So the device-cmyk values are definitely ignored.

Regards,

Uwe Laubender

( CMYK )

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi yaws,

did you try to write a "real-world" valid SVG file with that code?

If yes, can you place it with InDesign? Or open it with Illustrator or e.g. InkScape?

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

W

wsy29118807Author

Participating Frequently

<svg version="1.2" baseProfile="tiny" id="Ebene_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
	 x="0px" y="0px" viewBox="0 0 100 100" xml:space="preserve">
<rect fill="#00A0E0 device-cmyk(1.00, 0.00, 0.00, 0.00)" width="100" height="100"/>
</svg>

Here is the SVG code with a slight modification.
The Mac preview is black, as shown below, but the InDesign CC2020 shows RGB as CMYK.
But what I want is to show the alternative color CMYK values (device-cmyk (1.00, 0.00, 0.00, 0.00)) when InDesign is in CMYK color mode.

[indesign cc2020]

[mac preview]

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

In case there is any lingering doubt or hope that SVG supports CMYK: https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/color.html

"All SVG colors are specified in the sRGB color space [SRGB]. At a minimum, SVG user agents shall conform to the color behavior requirements specified in the color units section and the minimal gamma correction rules defined in the CSS2 specification. Additionally, SVG content can specify an alternate color specification using an ICC profile [ICC42] as described in Specifying paint. If ICC-based colors are provided and the SVG user agent supports ICC color, then the ICC-based color takes precedence over the sRGB color specification; otherwise, the RGB fallback colors must be used. Note that, in this specification, color interpolation occurs in an RGB color space even if an ICC-based color specification is provided (see ‘color-interpolation’)."

W

wsy29118807Author

Participating Frequently

I don't think it's easy to match RGB to CMYK exactly.
But wouldn't it be possible if the SVG author puts CMYK values corresponding to RGB as in the SVG specification below?

https://www.w3.org/TR/SVGColor12/#icc-colors

rob day

Community Expert

I don't think it's easy to match RGB to CMYK exactly.

If the RGB color is inside of the destination CMYK space, then a color managed conversion would match. Here the blue is in gamut so a color managed conversion from sRGB to US Web Coated SWOP is a perfect match. If the source RGB color is out-of-gamut, like the green below, then there can’t be a match:

If you need a specifically built CMYK color, something like 50% gray, or 10|0|0|40 gray, or 100% black; then color managed RGB conversions would be a problem because the conversions are always managed. Most common CMYK profiles convert one color grays into their 4-color equivalent.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

SVG does *not* support CMYK. It's just not there. (Whoops. I wrote "CMYK does not support CMYK originally, but I fixed it). Just because there is demand for SVG in InDesign that doesn't make it a full fledged prepress format. I do hope Adobe don't create an "extended SVG" which does support CMYK, that will lead to all sorts of havoc. However, there are proposals for named (=spot) colour in a future SVG.

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi John,

tried that as well with a simple rectangle in Adobe Illustrator filled with a CMYK color 0-50-100-0.

Placing the AI file yield in exactly that CMYK numbers.

Saved an SVG file from the AI file and placed that. The CMYK numbers in Separation View changed to 0-50-97-0.

Code of the SVG file saved is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Generator: Adobe Illustrator 23.1.0, SVG Export Plug-In . SVG Version: 6.00 Build 0)  -->
<svg version="1.2" baseProfile="tiny" id="Ebene_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
	 x="0px" y="0px" viewBox="0 0 100 100" xml:space="preserve">
<rect fill="#F39100" width="100" height="100"/>
</svg>

The rectangle fill color was ~~exported~~ saved to the SVG file as #F39100. No CMYK values in sight.

Color management settings in Illustrator and InDesign are all the same.

So I think this is no proof for SVGs with CMYK colors.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

EDITED

rob day

Community Expert

tried that as well with a simple rectangle in Adobe Illustrator filled with a CMYK color 0-50-100-0.

Placing the AI file yield in exactly that CMYK numbers.

Illustrator documents have a document color space, so if you export an SVG from a CMYK Illustrator document, it must go out as DeviceRGB since there would be no way to assign an RGB profile inside of a CMYK AI document, and the SVG export dialog has no profile option.

I would guess that the appearance and Separation values of your color would change depending on the InDesign document’s assigned RGB profile—a ProPhoto RGB assignment would produce different separation values for the SVG object than an sRGB assignment?

John Mensinger

Community Expert

It's unlikely it will ever affect my workflow, but your question made me curious so I Saved (not exported) an SVG made up of CMYK elements in an Illustrator document that is in CMYK Document Color Mode, and Placed it in InDesign.

In InDesign, I used the Separations Preview panel to observe and confirm the Placed SVG does indeed behave like a CMYK graphic.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi John, Separation Preview always displays CMYK values even for placed RGB objects. I haven’t installed 2020—but what happens to a placed SVG with a black only CMYK object 0|0|0|100? If it converts to 4-color, it might not actually be CMYK.

John Mensinger

Community Expert

Yeah that makes sense Rob. Thanks for the follow-up.

And, your suggested black-only experiment does indeed expose the conversion; 0|0|0|100 becomes 4 colors.

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