Cannot Edit a pantone color in illustrator

Has anyone encountered the problem of not being ablw to edit a pantone color in illustrator? I'm trying to switch it to process CMYK and the top portion of the editing box is ghosted out.
Solution?
Thanks !!
Ron

You need to have the swatch palette open > click on the element that uses one of the Pantone colors > the swatch should be highlighted in your swatch palette, panel, whatever > you should see the CMYK triangular square in the palette > click on the CMYK icon to convert the color to process > should show up as a new swatch, if not, just drag it to the swatch palette.

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8 steps to load a Pantone color in Illustrator - What?

Hi There,
Illustrator's way of specifying Pantone colors has driven my colleagues and I to distraction.
Firstly we go through 4 menus to select the book color, then view the swatch library as a small list, then show the find field, then search for the color, then finally load the color - 8 steps in total.
Then if you need to specify an uncoated color, you have go through all 8 steps again.
what is the proper way to load a Pantone color in Illustrator?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Cheers

I'm on CS2 and I've been using Illy since it started.
I have always found that the quickest and easiest way of making a Pantone colour is to use Pantone's Solid to Process Imaging Guide. Make a CMYK colour using the CMYK values given up in the guide, make a swatch of it and then edit the swatch to a spot colour with the appropriate Pantone name and number. It's really far less trouble than using Illy's ready-mades. Believe me :-)
As for CS3, there is apparently little to recommend it. It seems to have far too many bugs. I'm awaiting a version that works properly and it looks like it may be a longish wait. I occasionally have to revert to Illy 6 and 9 (6 was brilliant) on an old computer for special effects and filters that "improved" versions can't cope with. Illy has somehow got far too complicated and unintuitive for basic run-of-the-mill vector work. The bottom line: if it wasn't busted why did they mend it?
And yet again, where did Dimensions go to? Illy's 3D is total junk.

Can I easily match Pantone colors using Illustrator?

Hi all,
I run a small invitation supply company.
Our primary design tool up until now has been Photoshop Elements.
We recently purchased a $6000 printer from Xerox which is the 'gold standard' for graphic arts and Pantone approved.
We also have a pantone color bridge. When I print a color using the hex code, the color looks NOTHING like the pantone swatch.
I contacted Xerox and they told me that because Elements has a very low degree of color management that we will never be able to easily color match our pantone swatches and that they aren't surprised the color is way off.
I suppose I naively figured that spending $6000 on a printer would get us easy and flawless color matching. Xerox says- not so.
They suggested investing in Illustrator and they are convinced that it will be much more likely to get us to the point that we want. Ultimately I want to be able to pick a color from the pantone deck, enter the code, and feel confident that the print will come out 100% the corresponding color.
Am I living a pipe dream?
I would like some feedback before proceeding.
On top of the financial investment, obviously there is a lot of time that my partner and I will have to spend learning Illustrator.
Any input would be great.
Thanks,
Aaron

Am I living a pipe dream?
Yes.
More precisely, you are just failing to understand the fundamental difference between spot color and process color.
I want to be able to pick a color from the pantone deck, enter the code, and feel confident that the print will come out 100% the corresponding color.
Not gonna happen, even if you do all the tedious color management setup you can.
The above assumes you are, in fact, talking about matching Pantone spot colors. (Pantone does not just publish spot color swatches, but that is the usual sense in which beginners refer to Pantone.)
A spot color is, by definition, an actual, physical, single ink which is loaded into a press. The only way to achieve your 100% pipedream is to load that actual, physical, single ink into your $6000 printer.
But that's how a printing press works, not how your $6000 printer works. It works by printing four "primary colors" of inks and then arranging tiny dots of them in proximity to each other in order to "trick" the eye into seeing them as a mixture of colors on the page in proportions which try to approximate the spot color as best it can.
But physical inks are simply not accurate enough to actually do that. There are many, many spot colors which simply cannot be replicated by mixing arrays of primary colors of inks. That's what all this "gamut" talk is about. That's one reason why spot color inks exist.
The Pantone spot color matching system is a means by which to consistently communicate proportional mixtures of actual, real, physical inks of known specific colors. All anyone (including Pantone) can do with the CMYK inks (or dyes) in a desktop printer is try to recommend percentages of those CMYK inks to best approximate a match to an actual, physical spot color ink.
It gets worse. Your monitor cannot actually match a spot color ink swatch, either. Your monitor glows. Ink doesn't. Even on tediously calibrated systems, there is more to perceived "color" than just numerical values of CMYK or RGB or HSL or Lab. There is chroma. There is reflectance. There is opacity. There is grain.
Then there's the whole matter of the incredibly context-sensitive adaptabability of human vision.
So if you are selling the output of your $6000 printer as the final product, you should not use Pantone spot color swatches as any kind of contract color specification, because your printer cannot actually print spot color inks. If you're doing color-critical work that the customer will refuse when specified colors don't match, you and your customer must specify colors which your device can actually produce.
JET

Pantone colors in Illustrator

Hello everyone,
I am using Illustrator 10 and send a job to my printer using an image as a Pantone color.
However they tell me that the image is CMYK and that I need to color it with the PMS color
I've indicated. I created the image in Photoshop, first made it gray sclae then created it as
a duo tone. Is this not the correct way? I've also checked in Illustrator but the only options
I see are RGB HSB and CMYK.
Can anyone help with this please? Thanks in advance.

Typically, when you create a duotone in PS, the file becomes a Spot color file, not CMYK ( for instance, Black + Pantone 340C ). Your print vendor is confused or does not understand the file structure. Yes, the Ai file is CMYK, but there will be at least 2 additional channels in the color separations in the RIP where they can select just the 2 Spot colors to print or 4 process colors ( CMYK ) + 2 Spot colors ( Pantone Black + Pantone 340C ) for a grand total of six colors. If, for some reason, the job was not estimated for 6 colors and they want to get away cheap, they can demand that you Place the Grayscale .tiff and paint that using Process color equivalents ( 100c, 0m, 69y, 15k as an example ), which is nowhere near the same as a duotone. Even if you did what they want, you painted the Grayscale image using Pantone 340C, it's not the same thing as using a duotone. There will be no Black in the image. You've done it the correct way, just confirm you are dealing with the true duotone file and not a CMYK ripoff ( which is unlikely because you'd have to convert it to CMYK on purpose ). Make sure you get a contract proof of the job so they do not mess what you've done. There is no way to create a Duotone Illustrator file, it's either RGB or CMYK. CMYK for print, RGB for web. They need to figure out their color space. Ofcourse it's CMYK, but the image is not CMYK, it's a duotone. You need to solve this before they go to press.

Pantone Color Library

Why are the pantone colors in illustrator cc based on Lab mode and can I change the whole library to be based on CMYK as it was in cs5? When I create a pdf in cc and email it, some of the recipients see it as a solid black shape. I think that they may be using an older version of Acrobat reader because it does not seem to be happening to everyone. Thanks.

TR Wilkens wrote:
Why are the pantone colors in illustrator cc based on Lab mode?
Adobe (and Corel) made that change because Pantone made that change. They are merely staying in step with the official Pantone color definitions.
Can I change the whole library to be based on CMYK as it was in cs5?
Yes. See the "Recommendations" section in the below link. It also explains the color change.
http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html
--OB

Illustrator CS4, new Pantone color books, color channel issue

Since I installed the new Pantone color books, I've been running in a major issue which will affect our whole production line.
If an Illustrator CS4 file contains a Photoshop CS4 image which is using an "old" Pantone color in a color channel, it cannot be opened and I get an error message "File is unreadable". If I replace the "old" Pantone colour with its new equivalent in the color channel in Photoshop, the file can be opened normally.
In our work environment, this means going through all our images to check which one is using a color channel. A painful and time wasting procedure. Furthermore, if one of our suppliers doesn't have the new color books, they won't be able to open any of the files, both Photoshop and Illustrator, so they have no way to revert back to the old Pantone.
Is there another way to fix this?
Thank you

More on the Pantone PLUS saga, hoping to get some input from the users of this forum. I find their silence deafening, to say the least. This is a serious issue, that will cost our agency hours and hours of work if it isn't addressed. And we've already wasted hours of troubleshooting and discussions on how we could resolve it.
We're actually testing a workaround: using both the old and the new libraries in Illustrator. After consulting our suppliers, we've learned that this is what they also do. For them, it's a one shot to get the file to print. For us, it means cheating with files that will get edited again in the future. And the Pantone installer removes the old Pantone books from the Adobe folders for a reason which is mentioned on the download page:
The reason that the PANTONE Color Libraries that had been built into Illustrator need to be removed and replaced with the PANTONE PLUS Color Libraries is that, in Illustrator, a PANTONE Color can only have one data point with which it is associated. In the short term, in order to benefit from the new colors and data associated in PLUS, the PANTONE Libraries that are installed with Adobe Illustrator are removed and replaced with the new PLUS Libraries.
http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20721&ca=1
I worry this may lead to another bunch of issue, knowing how easily AI files get corrupted. What I need to know is:
What is the exact meaning of the Pantone warning about the "one data point per color?
What are the long term implications of using both Pantone libraries in an Adobe file? Or in the Adobe app?

Pantone Colors not showing in Illustrator

Hi,
I've just purchased new @pantone Pantone + Color Bridge Coated and Uncoated books. I have chosen 2347 C but cannot load this swatch in @Illustrator Illustrator or InDesign - in fact I can't see the whole page of 39C or 38C. I am using Adobe Illustrator CC
I urgently need help on this.
Many Thanks,
Amy

where did you install the color books? they should have the extension .acb
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Why can't I find certain Pantone plus colors in Illustrator CS6 color books?

Why can't I find certain Pantone plus colors in Illustrator CS6 color books? For example I want to use PMS 2296C, but it is not coming up in the color swatch book in Illustrator.

Thanks!
I actually just came across the same thing in the meantime.
And it worked!
If you bought the physical Pantone books, there is a registration/serial number on the back. You can go to Pantone and register it (https://www.pantone.com/pages/MYP_myPantone/mypProductRegistration.aspx)
Then you're able to download the Pantone manager.
There are infact 336 new colors added to the Pantone Plus series. And this is where you need to get them. Once you have them, in Pantone color manager, you go to: File/Export/Adobe Illustrator/sRB. Then restart Illustrator.
Once you go back in, the new 336 colors are available!

Pantone color changes modes from Illustrator to InDesign

I have a logo designed in Illustrator that uses Pantone color 5275 C. When I place it in InDesign, the color is dull and dark. In my Color palette, it says the spot color is based on the LAB mode instead of CMYK. I've never seen that happen before in earlier InDesign versions. How do I get the color mode to match what it is in Illustrator?

In Illustrator you get the Pantone libraries via Window>Swatch Libraries>Color Books>Pantone + Solid Coated. When you have the library open a selected swatch will show in the Color panel :
InDesign is different. You get a Pantone color via Swatches>New Color Swatch>Pantone + Solid Coated>choose a desired color swatch

Illustrator CS6 / CC and previous Pantone color books

Hi all, I've understood that Illustrator CS6 / CC has the new Pantone+ color books, those color books doesn't have CMYK values so the default of rIllustrator CS6 / CC is to use the Lab values when I add a Pantone swatches to my document. One of my customers, that is a print industry, need to have the old Pantone with CMYK values to maintain the same color rendition on old and continuative jobs. Adobe says that I can load the old Pantone color books from CS5 and change the swatches option so that Illustrator use the CMYK values: http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html The problem is that this doesn't work for me and for my customer, even if I change the swatches option Illustrator continue to load only the Lab values from the older CS5 Pantone color books... anyone of you has a solution?

I am running into the same issue. Both links suggested did not work for me. In a document I created in CS4 (the old document) and opened in CC there is a square with the color Pantone 519U in which it converts to C:67% M:100% Y:30% K:10%. These are the numbers to be expected. If I copy the square that is 519U in the old document and paste it in the same old document the color remains the same.
I create a new document in CC (the new document). From the old document I copy the Pantone 519U square and paste it in the new document. The resulting square in the new document is a washed out purple. The new document square converts to C:57.27% M:68.83% Y:35.06% K:13.06%.
Again I followed Workaround 1 in the link. I obtained the old Pantone Libraries from my CS4 machine so it is not a library issue. I have also created a new Document Profile where I set the Spot Color to be "Use CMYK values from the manufacturer's process books". I am seeing the same problem before and after the workaround.

Illustrator cc crashes on start up win 8 - pantone color manager issues?

I was at a clients office yesterday, installed Pantone Color manager on my laptop (I have Adobe Illustrator CC) and on their desktop (They have latest copy of Illustrator, but not cc, it's disc). And imported some pantone swatches into illustrator on both machines.
Since I shut down my laptop on leaving their office and restarted, Illustrator freezes on start up. Their machine is ok.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled illustrator. I checked that it wasn't win updates that is causing this and ran an update. I'm stuck now, still no solution, I'm travelling abroad and I need illustrator! Could anyone walk me through any possible solutions?

I selected the swatch card that I needed using the Pantone Colour Services manager application - I selected a Pantone Textiles colour card - same colour ref guide as my paper swatch book - because it doesn't come as standard with the software, you then choose which Adobe application you want to export it to following the instructions here http://pantone.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1803
In ordder to do this, I installed Pantone Color Services manager from the pantone website - I note that this software seemed to be bundled with X-Rite Services Device manager which installed at the same time. Despite removing this and reinstalling and also trying to use Windows system restore (which didn't work and threw up an error message saying it could not restore) the application still does not launch. Do I need to go into the registry and alter anything?

Why do my Pantone colors in my pdf print differently from Adobe Reader than they do from Illustrator

I'm using the same printer color setting/profile in each application, US Web Coated Swop v2, (I choose this profile in the pint dialog box in Reader). The pantone colors do not match on our Sharp MX3100. I know Illustrator has been using the new Pantone books. Is Reader updated with these or is it converting my pdf to rgb when it prints? I like to print my customer's pdf file from Reader first and then after I set the file up with our shop parameters in Illustrator CS6 I print the file from illustrator but the Pantone colors, Orange 021 for instance looks entirely different. Thanks for any help!

Downgrade to previous CS where color was color. Seriously, if you were getting correct color on output and the color appeared correctly on your monitor before you updated, then there's where the problem is. The update.

Pantone color not included in Illustrator?

Hello,
I am looking for a Pantone color close to #303030.
Every converter I found gives me Pantone 29 as the closest match which is #332E2E but in Adobe Illustrator I can't find this Pantone.
I am not sure how to be sure of a Pantone color close to #303030.
This is to be used on a Logo.
Could someone please help me out?
Thank You,
Miguel

Miguel,
A search on the Pantone site for Pantone 29 returns nothing, http://www.pantone.co.uk/pages/SiteSearch/SiteSearch.aspx
I have found Pantone 29 mentioned on a few sites with slightly different CMYK/RGB/hex values, see below, but it seems to be a ghost colour. Or where/when has it been used?
And the muddy CMYK values seem to imply conversion from RGB, not something from a formula guide.
http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/files/WDD_logo_guidelines_08.pdf (page 7)
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.digitale-infop rodukte.de/logos/&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522pantone%2B29%2522%26start%3D30%26hl%3Den%26sa%3D N&rurl=translate.google.dk&usg=ALkJrhhJ9QAh3PoiPvmvg8yfNemVHsNbLw

Pantone color book for Illustrator 6

Where can I find updated color books for Illustrator to use the latest Pantone colors?
Eg. I do not find Solid Coated 2028 in my recent installation
Thanks in advance
Charlotte

Ask in the AI forum. Certain Pantone colors have changed over the years and this may be such a case where it appears under a different number...
Mylenium

Adding pantone colors to a object in Illustrator cc 2014?

I need to send my Illustrator file but they are requesting that the objects be in the pantone colors. I have been searching and trying different things but i can not find where in the color swatches I can add a pantone. I tried to recolor artwork but i do not understand. Can someone let me know how i can add pantone to an object in Illustrator?

Using recolor artwork you could limit the color libraries to a Pantone library. That's very tiny button in the middle lower part of the dialog box. You should check the manual for explanation of the dialog box.
Mind that this kind of conversion depends on color management.

Cannot Edit a pantone color in illustrator

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