Placing a file into Indseign from Illustrator and maintaining Pantone Color

[Ead31190111oiev]

Hi there,

I am getting a tote bag printed and have been asked to use PMS spot colors. I created the vector design in Illustrator and used P-52-8-C. When I placed it into Indesign, I found how to check that my colors were Pantone by using the separations panel and turning off all the CMYK values. My design dissappeared, which apparently means I am not using a Pantone color.

I know I can just save the illustrator file as a PDF and submit that to the printer (they said either PDF of packaged Indesign file), but it got me wondering how, if I needed to print something from Indesign using PMS colors, I would do that if the files I placed from Illustrator that I created using PMS swatches were not recognised as so once placed.

Cheers,

Ead

[Eugene Tyson · Accepted solution]

Are you sure it's a spot colour in Illustrator?

It will need to have a little dot in the bottom right corner of the swatch in Illustrator
https://illustratorhow.com/pantone-colors/

What file format did you save the file as - was it a .ai file?
Or did you export to something else, like jpeg?

There's nothing really special you need to do - InDesign will recognise colours from files you place
Using File>Place

https://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=2485152&seqNum=2#:~:text=Select%20New%20Color%20Sw....

[Ead31190111oiev]

Hi Eugene, 

Thanks for your reply! Saved it as an .ai file and placed it, and it definitely has the mark in the bottom right hand corner to indicate pantone colour:

Is there some other way I can check to see if it is still a Pantone color in Indesign? This is how I did it:

[Willi Adelberger]

What PDF standard did you use to place the file in InDesign? Use only PDF/X-4 or AI files. 
Open in InDesign the swatch panel. In its menu you go to the ink manager. Are the the spot colors found and not selected to convert to process colors?

Did you export from InDesign to PDF with which settings?

[Ead31190111oiev]

Hi Willi, thanks for replying. I placed it as an AI file. This is what I see when I go to the ink manager, I am not sure how to interpret it.

[Ead31190111oiev]

Also, when I export as a PDF/X-4 from Illustrator, there are no Pantone colours present

[Ead31190111oiev]

Hi everyone! I realised what was wrong! I didn't have the color type set to 'spot color'. It was set to process color. I aassumed that pantone colors were spot colors automatically. Thanks for your help!

[Eugene Tyson]

I think it's cos the spot colour you picked is from the Pantone CMYK book - you should be using Pantone Solid Coated - or Pantone Solid Uncoated. 

But neither here nor there. 

[rob day]

I aassumed that pantone colors were spot colors automatically

Hi @Ead31190111oiev , If you have the Pantone .acb files installed, the Libraries with Bridge, process, or CMYK in their names are defined as Process CMYK, the other Libraries are defined as Spot in the Lab Color Mode:

[Ead31190111oiev]

Hi @rob day and @Eugene Tyson , in my Illustrator I only seem to have access to the Pantone +CMYK Coated, Uncoated and metalic books. Is that because Adobe changed its liscencing with Pantone? 

However, I selected my color from the CMYK coated book, and then I selected the swatch and then went to swatch options in the menu. I then selected spot color instead of process color in the dropdown menu

It doesnt seem like the proper way of doing things but it seems to have worked in that now the Indesign document recognises them as Pantone colors whereas it didn't before

[rob day · Accepted solution]

It doesnt seem like the proper way of doing things but it seems to have worked in that now the Indesign document recognises them as Pantone colors whereas it didn't before

Hi @Ead31190111oiev , Any color can have its Color Type set to Spot—it doesn’t have to be a Pantone color. If you really are outputting a Spot color—a color that will output as a an extra plate on an offset press—your printer isn‘t going to know what solid ink color you are referring to, because PANTONE P 1-4 C is not a custom solid ink color.

If you have updated to the latest InDesign the Pantone Solid Ink .acb libraries are no longer automatically installed you have to manually install the .acb libraries. This might help:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/pantone-alert-in-indesign/td-p/13565184