Spot - Pantone Color

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     I need to get spot pantone colors.  How can i get the pantone colors with that name and how to differenciate the below 2 ??

    Both are spot colors.  I need to get that PANTONE value (ie., 187). How can i differenciate and get those values with swatch names??

     Any specification is there to identify PANTONE colors??

[Laubender]

You could hunt for the name "PANTONE".

There is nothing special in a spot color if one is done by the user or used from a repository.

Perhaps two things can be different, but this is outside of the scripting DOM and is only visible with IDML or IDMS:

User defined spot for PANTONE Yellow:

AlternateSpace="NoAlternateColor"

AlternateColorValue=""

PANTONE color from repository for PANTONE Yellow C:

AlternateSpace="LAB"

AlternateColorValue="89.01960784313725 -1 111"

So you could fill a rectangle with a color, export to IDMS and see if properties AlternateSpace and AlternateColorValue have a value other than "NoAlternateColor" or an empty string.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     Thank you for your reply...

     I need to check indise application file.  How can i differenctiate pantone colors with others (sample my screenshots). Not using swatch name. Bcoz user can use pantone in name as a text.

Also  I want to check built in blace (ie., [Black]). How to check [Black] built in swatch??

[Laubender]

Why do you think, that you are looking for text in the document?
I thought you like to look after (perhaps) the name of a color?

var colorArray = app.documents[0].colors.everyItem().getElements();
// loop and perhaps check for name:
for(var n=0;n<colorArray.length;n++)
{
$.writeln( colorArray.name );
};

See for other properties of colors here:

Adobe InDesign CS6 (8.0) Object Model JS: Color

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

I want to get the pantone swatches. I should not check based on swatch name. I want to get pantone swatches used in document...

Document may contains spot and multiple pantones but i need to check if a document contains more than one  pantones or any other spot colors used.

Document may contains variation (color value variation) in colors in a pantone but should  not contains multiple pantones..

For eg., document have pantone 187 u.  so document may contains duplicate of this pantone colors but should not contains other swatches. So i need to get pantone swatches... but dono how to check pantone in document??

[Laubender]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Sudha+K  wrote

I want to get the pantone swatches. I should not check based on swatch name. I want to get pantone swatches used in document...

Document may contains spot and multiple pantones but i need to check if a document contains more than one  pantones or any other spot colors used.

Document may contains variation (color value variation) in colors in a pantone but should  not contains multiple pantones..

For eg., document have pantone 187 u.  so document may contains duplicate of this pantone colors but should not contains other swatches. So i need to get pantone swatches... but dono how to check pantone in document??

What exactly is a duplicate?

A color that is not a spot, but its CMYK output is the same or nearly the same as a spot?

A spot that is named differently but its CMYK output would be the same or nearly the same as a spot if AlternateSpace and AlternateColorValue is factored in? And that will depend on the output method and color management policies.

A spot that has nearly the same name and is meant to be the same color even if color space and color value is not the same?

I'm not sure if that can decided at all…

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     Sorry i could not get...

     Actually i want to do the below steps.

     1. identify the spot color swatches     -     Can do using swatch model

     2. PANTONE color swatch               -     How to identify this?

     3. All PANTONE are LAB color??     or it may be LAB or CMYK??

     I need to identify the pantone color swatches only in an active document...

[Laubender]

Hi,

as I already said: You can only identify a PANTONE color by its name.

Depending on the repository PANTONE colors come in LAB or CMYK space.

The space and the values for color are not important if a PANTONE color remains spot and should be printed as spot.

So it's all in a name and the accompanied PANTONE swatch book.

Printers will use recipes to mix a PANTONE spot for printing so you cannot know in advance what exact LAB color a printed PANTONE color will get on a specific paper with a specific printing process. PANTONE swatch books are no big help here because PANTONE colors for swatch books are printed in a special dry offset run on a paper unknown.

If you like to compare PANTONE spot colors you need a press run proof on original paper for the final print run, meassure the color, reading the LAB values. Or you are talking to the customer what is intended and what colors should be meant identical so you could set up one standard for different doucments.

The main problem is to know if a color is used on actual contents.
There could be unused styles using the color or even placed graphics ( EPS, PDF, AI (PDF) ) as well.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     Sorry for very late reply... Thanks for your reply...

     Actually I need to identify pantone swatches from swatches. It may or may not applied in document.  We can check it by unused swatches. Also we can create spot color with the name of "PANTONE" text in swatch name and built in pantone swatches also have the text PANTONE in the swatch name.  How can we identify the built in PANTONE colors in swatches palette (It may used in document). Please refer my screenshots.

 

PANTONE Yellow 012 C is built-in swatches but PANTONE MAN is user created in the name of PANTONE as swatch name.  How can i identify pantone and those colors.

[Laubender]

Hi,

maybe the only means to descern the two is to inspect a snippet idms file where the swatches are used.

See into the attributes of a custom PANTONE one and one that is used from an installed dispository. You may spot the difference.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     How can i see those properties in IDML file? Is there is any option to get those swatches from idml or indd file using script?

[Laubender]

IDMS, not IDML. IDMS is easier to inspect.

Just use some rectangles and fill them with the PANTONE colors you want to inspect.
Export to IDMS and open the snippet with your text or XML editor. Look into the attributes.

( Out of my head: ) Think the value for property parent will give you an idea.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Thank you...    I can see the difference in idms file.

1. We have export individual pageitems  and need to check it right?? Using this can we automate for indesign file?

2. There is no option to check it in indesign file itself?

[Trevor:]

You could check the .acb files to see if the Pantone  is contained, the caveat being that the files change from year to year so some a color that was around 6 years ago might not be in the latest release, also it could have had it's values changed but one can read the files from years back and make a data base of them to compare. Reading the files is quite simple the spec is available online. I did a quite a few years back but don't have time to look it up now.  

[Laubender]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Sudha+K  wrote

…

2. There is no option to check it in indesign file itself?

I see no way to determine this.

There is one property missing in DOM for scripting that is available with IDML or IDMS. And that is SwatchCreatorID. I may be wrong, but this could be the hook. Look for SwatchCreatorID for a known color like "Color/Black" or "Swatch/None". They share the same value for SwatchCreatorID with the custom user PANTONE color that is not from the repositories with the .acb files.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

Hi,

     Thank you for your reply...

     I need to find out it inside an application file but i knew we can get the name using idms file. For this we should export each object to idms format.

Thank you for explained me...

[Laubender]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Sudha+K  wrote

… For this we should export each object to idms format.

Hm, don't know what you mean by object here.

Just loop through all spot colors of the document. Temporarily add a rectangle, apply the current spot color, export to IDMS and inspect the IDMS code by looking at the value of SwatchCreatorID.

Regards,
Uwe

[Sudha_K]

     I had created one rectangle and applied pantone color and exported to idms that i mentioned..

     Using Javascript we can automate the below point.

     Can we automate this point? I never did this..

    

- Sudha k

[Laubender]

Hi Sudha,

you could read the contents of the IDMS file to an XML object and look inside that.

A generic function for that by Harbs:

Re: is there a way to retrieve all labels inserted in an object?

Regards,
Uwe