Spot color or Pantone swatch colors can be applied to objects via the Pantone Swatch Color Book or Spot color library found in Adobe Illustrator. For Adobe InDesign, Spot Colors are more easily accessed. First, activate the Swatch palette by selecting WINDOW>Swatches.
Notice the fly-down menu icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Color palette? The icon looks like a small downward black triangle with four small lines next to it. Clicking on this will open a fly-out window menu. Hover your mouse over “Open Swatch Library” to open another fly-out window menu of all the color books. Very carefully move your mouse to hover over “Color Books”, which will open up another fly-out menu. You’ll see a lot of different color book options, but we recommend using “PANTONE solid uncoated”. Clicking on this color book will open a new window filled to the brim with a plethora of color
Swatches that Pantone has to offer.
Finally, assign all your file’s artwork, objects, and text to their appropriate Pantone Swatches or spot colors.
In Indesign, open the swatch window. click on the downward black triangle to the right and choose New Color. This opens a New Color Swatch Window. Select Spot as color type and Pantone Solid Uncoated as the Color Mode. The PMS colors will load for you to select and click OK.
Posted in: Designing for Letterpress, File Preparation