Set QR code color via RGB Value?

[zontarr]

I see how to change a QR code colr by mactching an existing color in an image/document. However I want to enter a specific RGB value and change it to that. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You can only use colors that are defined as swatches in InDesign, since they're a root value of various styles. So your only path would be to use the RGB values to define a swatch, then apply that swatch to the code's foreground or background.

You could create a color swatch named, say, QRcode, and assign any color value you like to it. However, it's a bit of an anomaly in ID's operation that if you generate a QR code using that color, and then change the color... the code's color will not change until you edit it. (Such 'sticky' colors are unusual in ID's methods, but the QR code generator is an outlier in many ways.)

But there is no way to bypass the need for a swatch, unless there are some deep hooks that scripting can reach. I'd bet the call only allows specifying a swatch, but one of the scripting wizards might know differently.

[Eugene Tyson]

Workaround

Set a spot colour before you make the QR Code

Generate the QR Code with the new colour

Make another swatch

Then use the Ink Manager

Set the QR code to be an Alias to the RGB swatch you made

View Overprint Preview

Now when you edit your Random Swatch in the swatch panel it will update live in the document

You can only see the change when in Overprint Preview -

You're creating a swatch in spot colour for the QR code - this makes it a separate Ink for printing and shows up in the Ink Manager

Then making your new RGB swatch

You can then Alias the Spot to any other colour - which maps that spot colour to whatever colour needed.

You can then update the RGB swatch to any colour you want - and it will update all the colours in the document that QR code colour is Aliased to.

It's quite quick to setup - but can only be viewed in Overprint Preview

And should output just fine.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Right, as with other things in ID there are multiple paths to the same end. But I read the question as "is there any way I can set an RGB color as part of creating a QR code" — and the answer is no, since the color is managed (simply or elaborately or script-ally) outside the generator, and must be done by assigning an existing swatch.

[Eugene Tyson]

1. Yeh it's really poor implementation of a feature that never got an improvement since version 1.

There are always roundabout ways to do things and it's frustrating.

But you can create a colour and map it and that goes across multiple disciplines and workflows 

It's a handy thing to remember. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Absolutely, and the technique was worth repeating here. I've noted it. 🙂

It really, really seems to me that the almost wholly standalone QR code module could have been updated by now. 😞

[Eugene Tyson]

Like so many features it has not been improved in a long time, if at all, that I know of.