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Swatches and spot inks

Name the colours a design uses as swatches, so changing one recolours everything that uses it. Apply tints, and mark a swatch as a spot ink for print.

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A swatch is a colour with a name. Fill your shapes from swatches rather than picking a colour each time, and changing a swatch changes every element that uses it, on every page. That is the reason to name a colour: "make the accent a little warmer" becomes one change instead of a hunt through the design.

A swatch can also be a spot ink: a colour printed with its own ink on its own plate, such as a Pantone colour, rather than mixed from the ordinary printing inks. Printers use spot inks when a colour has to match exactly.

Before you start

  • Swatches are on every plan.
  • Open a design in PlexiiDesign, or click inside a Design work widget on a desk. See PlexiiDesign overview.

Open the panel

Choose Layout > Swatches & spot inks…. The Swatches & spot inks panel opens above the page, in three parts: the Swatches list, the selected swatch's settings, and Apply with New swatch under it.

A design with no swatches of its own shows the starting set: Brand primary, plus Brand secondary and Brand neutral if your organisation's brand kit has them, then Black, White, Paper and Ink. Nothing is saved into the design until you add, apply or change a swatch.

Under each swatch's name, its row shows the colour's code and how much it is used, such as #1c1917 · used 3× or #1c1917 · unused. A spot ink is marked · spot and a brand colour · brand.

Apply a swatch

  1. Select one or more elements on the page.
  2. Choose Layout > Swatches & spot inks… and click a swatch.
  3. To use a lighter tint of it, drag Tint, from 5% to 100%. The small square beside it shows the result.
  4. Click Apply to 1 selected. The button shows how many elements are selected. With nothing selected it reads Select something to colour.

A swatch sets an element's fill, such as the colour of a shape. It does not change the colour of text, which is set with Text color in the inspector. An element with no fill is left as it is.

Tints mix towards white, as an ink does on white paper: a 20% tint of a dark blue is a pale blue, not a see-through one.

Change a swatch everywhere

  1. Click the swatch in the list.
  2. Change its Colour, or its Name.

Every element that uses the swatch changes with it, including elements that use a tint of it. Under the settings, the panel says how far a change will reach, such as Used by 3 elements. Changing the colour changes all of them., or Nothing uses this yet.

Add a swatch

  1. Under New swatch, type a name in the Name box.
  2. Click the colour box beside it and pick the colour.
  3. For a spot ink, type the ink's name in Spot ink name (optional), such as Pantone 286 C. Otherwise leave it empty.
  4. Click Add swatch.

Spot inks

To make a swatch a spot ink:

  1. Click the swatch.
  2. Tick Spot ink. Under it, the panel explains: Printed with its own ink on its own plate. The colour here is only an on-screen approximation of it.
  3. In Ink name, as the printer is told, type the ink's name exactly as your printer knows it, such as Pantone 286 C. It starts as the swatch's name.
  4. Set Colour to a close on-screen match, so the design looks right while you work.

When the design uses spot inks, the Swatches list says which, such as 1 spot ink in use: Pantone 286 C. Each one is a separate plate and is priced as one. Tools > Preflight for print… lists them too. See Check a design for print with preflight.

A spot ink counts only once something uses it. A spot swatch that nothing uses needs no plate, so it is not listed.

Delete a swatch

  1. Click the swatch.
  2. Rest the pointer on Delete. It says how many elements will keep the colour and lose the link.
  3. Click Delete.

Deleting a swatch leaves the design looking exactly as it did. Every element that used it keeps its colour. Only the name goes, along with the link, so those elements no longer change when you change a swatch.

Brand colours, marked · brand, are your organisation's brand-kit colours. They cannot be renamed, recoloured or deleted in this panel; resting the pointer on their Delete button says so. Change them with the Brand kit button in the Design toolbar (or Logo, if no brand logo is set yet), and every design that uses them follows. See Brand kit, Brandify and your logo.

Common questions

I deleted a swatch. Will my design change? No. Every element keeps exactly the colour it had. Only the name and the link to it are removed.

I changed a swatch and more changed than I expected. Everything filled from that swatch changes with it. The list shows how many use it, such as #1c1917 · used 3×. Click Undo to go back.

Why can I not change Brand primary? It comes from your organisation's brand kit, so it is locked here. Open Brand kit in the Design toolbar to change it.

Does the colour on screen match the printed spot ink? Not exactly. A screen cannot show a spot ink, so the colour you see is an approximation. Your printer prints the ink by its name.

Can a swatch colour my text? No. A swatch sets an element's fill. Set text colour with Text color in the inspector, or with a paragraph style for text in a story. See Paragraph styles and hyphenation.

Still need help? Contact support at [email protected].