How to have 1 linked file, but change it's colour across different documents?

[samanthaw6525845]

Hi all, need some help & suggestions on best solution! 

I'm about to make 50+ different calenders, each will be their own InD file.

Each calender will link to 1 file (InD) for the dates/grid pages (obviously 12 different grids, Jan, Feb etc).

Each calender will also link to their own artworks, which are not linked to any other file (Bird calendar, Dog calendar etc).

I'd like each calendar to have different colour grid pattern, so eg Blue calendar has a Blue grid < this is where I'm stuck. 

The only solution I can think of, is to make the Grid file into Tiffs and apply a spot colour to each 12 x page. HOWEVER this would add extra time when the Grid file has changes, and of course, prefer text/dates etc to be in vector format.

Any ideas??? 

(and no, I'm not a calendar company, so not sure how they organise their process, would love to know!)

[Conrad C]

If I understand the problem correctly, would a solution be to colorize the grid with a blending mode, as in the example below? All of the layers are vector. There is a Grid layer with a calendar table grid of 50% gray strokes, above that a layer called Colorizer, and on top is a Text layer with the calendar date numbers. There is a rectangle on the Colorizer layer with a single vector rectangle on it that covers the grid. The Colorizer layer uses the Overlay blend mode. The way it could work is that the master file would the gray calendar grid that never needs to change, but in each of your individualized calendar documents, you can change the color of the object(s) on the Colorizer layer, which uses the Overlay mode to apply its exact color to any 50% gray objects on layers behind it such as the calendar grid.

[Luke_Jennings · Accepted solution]

One way to control the grid color for each version would be to use the Ink Manager. On your master calendar file, make the grid a spot color, call it "Grid Color". For each version, add the desired grid color as a new spot color swatch, e.g. "Blue". From the fly-out menu of the swatches panel, go to Ink Manager> Ink Alias: (Map "Grid Color to "Blue") repeat for each version. Note you will need to go to View> Overprint preview to see the change. When exporting to PDF, use Export- All spots to process, to convert the spot colors to 4C. (unless you are using other actual spot colors).

[samanthaw6525845]

Perfect! Simple solution using only a few clicks. Thank you.

[rob day]

Each calender will link to 1 file (InD) for the dates/grid pages (obviously 12 different grids, Jan, Feb etc).

Another option might be to Select and Export the grids as Snippets (.idms) with the Swatches named as the object (i.e., CalendarGridColor) rather than a specific color. Then when you place the snippets, you could edit the incoming swatch values:

[samanthaw6525845]

.