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Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Changing Spot Colors in Illustrator 10


mutus
07-22-2005, 01:25 AM
So, I haven't really even touched Illustrator in the past year and haven't done 2-color work in much, much longer, so apologies if this is stupid or just old rehash...

Anyways... Is it possible to "hot swap" spot colors in Illustrator 10?

I've got a couple PMS spot swatches set up and I can edit them in HSB/RGB/etc in swatch options and see the changes applied globally. I can't for the life of me, however, find a way to simply switch out color assignments on a particular swatch.

This leaves me to either create a new swatch and update all of my objects manually, or try my best to approximate the new PMS color with those ****ing tiny HSB sliders and change the swatch name. This makes testing and swapping out color schemes a total chore.

I'd think it would be as easy as drag and drop or selecting the new color through a color picker, but that goes to show what I know. (Lord knows, Photoshop has Pantone integrated into its color picker... and what for, beyond duotone and DCS?)

Someone please tell me I'm missing the obvious here.

(At the very least tell me they've rectified this oversight in CS or CS2.)

PrintDriver
07-22-2005, 01:59 AM
Yes you can globally change colors. At least in CS
Directly from the Illustrator Help file:

To change a global process color or a spot color throughout a file:

Replace a color swatch in the Swatches palette using one of the following options:
• Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) a swatch from the Swatches palette over the swatch you want to replace.
• Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) a color from the Color palette over the swatch you want to replace.
• Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) a color from the Fill box or the Stroke box (in the toolbox or Color palette) over the swatch you want to replace.
• Double-click the swatch and edit the color in the Swatch Options dialog box. (See Editing swatches.)

mutus
07-22-2005, 02:11 AM
Ahhh.

Like I said: "missing the obvious," right? (FWIW, I would've liked to check Illustrator help, but there's something funky about my installation and I can't access it.)

Thanks, PD. I've just tripled my productivity.

And now I can reserve all of my software angst for Quark (so richly deserving).

PrintDriver
07-22-2005, 02:29 AM
eh, who reads the instructions.
It was easier to copy paste.
LOL.