Chapter 7: Creating Layout Standards
205
3.
Type the distance between grid lines in the Gridline Every field. If your basic mea-
surement unit is an inch, you probably want to use the default value of 1 inch.
4.
Type the number of divisions between grid lines in the Subdivisions field. If your
basic measurement unit is an inch, you can specify a value of 6 to subdivide the grid into
1-pica squares. Or, if you prefer, you can type a value of 4, 8, 16, and so on to subdivide
the grid into standard divisions of an inch.
5.
Click OK to close the dialog box and return to the document.
Tip
The Show/Hide Document Grid command (choose View ➪ Grids & Guides ➪ Show/Hide Document Grid or
Ô+' [apostrophe] or Ctrl+' [apostrophe]) lets you display and hide the document grid. n
Snapping to guides
If the Snap to Guides command (choose View ➪ Grids & Guides ➪ Snap to Guides or press
Shift+@cmd+; [semicolon] or Ctrl+Shift+; [semicolon]) is selected, object edges snap to guidelines
and grids when you drag them in the snap zone. To specify the snap zone (the distance — in pixels —
at which an object snaps to a guide), choose InDesign ➪ Preferences ➪ Guides & Pasteboard or
press Ô+K on the Mac, or choose Edit ➪ Preferences ➪ Guides & Pasteboard or press Ctrl+K
in Windows, and type a value in the Snap to Zone field in the Guide Options section of the
dialog box.
Setting the snap zone is just the first step. You must turn on the snap-to feature in InDesign as well
for whichever elements you want to snap to:
l
For guidelines and baseline grids, be sure Snap to Guides is turned on. Choose
View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Snap to Guides or press Shift+Ô+; (semicolon) or Ctrl+Shift+;
(semicolon). Note that the guidelines must be visible for objects to snap to them; to make
them visible, choose View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Show Guides or press Ô+; (semicolon) or
Ctrl+; (semicolon), but the baseline grid need not be visible.

l
For document grids, be sure that Snap to Document Grid is turned on. Choose
View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Snap to Document Grid or press Shift+Ô+' (apostrophe) or
Ctrl+Shift+' (apostrophe).
In both cases, if the menu option has a check mark to its left, it is turned on. Choosing it toggles
between turning on and off the snap-to feature.
Summary
If you want to be a true InDesign expert, you must take advantage of four of its most powerful fea-
tures: master pages, templates, libraries, and styles. All these features save time and ensure design
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
206
consistency across documents. A master page is a preformatted page design that you can apply to
document pages in a multipage publication; a template is a preconstructed document that serves as
the starting point when you need to create multiple versions of the same publication; a library is a
storage file in which you can save any object you’ve created with InDesign for use in other publica-
tions; and a style is a saved set of formatting that you can apply to items to guarantee consistency,
both when you apply the style and when you modify the style to ensure all items with the style
applied are updated automatically.
To help you place and align objects, InDesign lets you create three types of guidelines: ruler
guides, the baseline grid, and the document grid. You can also move the column guides that
InDesign creates automatically for you. You can show or hide guidelines, and you have the option
to snap object edges to guidelines when you click and drag them in the specified snap zone.
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207
CHAPTER
Defining Colors,
Tints, and Gradients

IN THIS CHAPTER
Getting acquainted with color
terminology
Making sense of process and
spot colors
Working with color models
in InDesign
Defining colors and tints
Mixing colors
Importing colors from files
Sampling colors from images
Understanding color issues
in imported graphics
Working with gradients
Editing, copying, and deleting
swatches
Applying colors, tints, and
gradients
W
hether you want to produce limited-run documents on a color
printer, create newsletters using spot colors, publish magazines
and catalogs using process colors and special inks, or produce
documents to be distributed electronically on computer screens, InDesign
offers the tools that you need to do the job well.
In printing, color is a complex issue, which involves both physics and chem-
istry. The inks that produce color are designed chemically to retain those
colors and to produce them evenly so that your images don’t look mottled or
faded. How light reflects off of ink and paper to your eye determines the
color you see, and many factors (particularly different textures of paper) can
affect the physics of how the light carries the color.

You also have implementation issues to consider: How many colors can your
printing press produce, and how much will it cost? When do you decide to
go for the exact pure color, and when do you decide to go with a close
enough version that costs less to print?
For on-screen use, color is easier to deal with, because what you see as you
do your layouts matches what the readers will see on their screen — the
exception being that Web browsers may not show the same color subtleties
for HTML pages you create in InDesign as can be displayed on-screen in
Flash and PDF files.
After you have figured out what your color capabilities are, you can get into
the nitty-gritty of actually using color in your graphics or applying colors to
text and layout elements (such as bars along the edge of a page), or you can
use color both ways. To a great extent, where you define and apply color
determines what you can do with it.
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
208
Cross-Reference
Chapter 29 covers color matching and other high-end color-output issues in depth. This chapter
concentrates on how to create and apply colors within InDesign. n
Defining Color Terms
Color is an expansive (and sometimes confusing and esoteric) concept in the world of publishing.
The following definitions, however, should start you on your way to a clear understanding of the
subject:
l
Build: Attempts to simulate a color-model color by combining the appropriate percent-
ages of the four process colors.
l
CMYK: A standard that specifies colors as combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow, and

black. These four colors are known as process colors.
l
Color gamut: The range of colors that a device, such as a monitor or a color printer, can
produce. Each color model has a different color gamut.
l
Color model: An industry standard for specifying a color, such as CMYK or Pantone.
l
Color separation: A set of four photographic negatives, one filtered for each process
color, shot from a color photograph or image. When combined, the four negatives repro-
duce that original image.
l
Color space: A method of representing color in terms of measurable values, such as the
amount of red, yellow, and blue in a color image. The color space RGB represents the red,
green, and blue colors on video screens.
l
Four-color printing: The use of the four process colors in combination to produce most
other colors.
l
Lab: A standard that specifies colors by one lightness coordinate (indicating luminance, the
intensity of the light) and two color coordinates, green-red and blue-yellow. The name
refers to the mathematical approach used to describe the colors in a cubic arrangement:
luminance, a-axis (green-red), and b-axis (blue-yellow); thus the term Lab. Note that you
may see the term CIE Lab in other programs and in some design books; it’s the same thing
as Lab; CIE means Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage (International Committee on
Illumination), the international standards group that created the Lab specification.
l
Process color: Any of the four primary colors in publishing — cyan, magenta, yellow,
and black (known collectively as CMYK).
l
RGB: The standard used by monitors, and the abbreviation from the three colors in it:

red, green, and blue. One of the biggest hurdles to producing color documents that look
as you’d expect is that computers use RGB whereas printers use CMYK, and the two don’t
always produce colors at the same hue.
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
209
l
Spot color: A single color applied at one or more places on a page, such as for a screen or
as part of an illustration. You can use more than one spot color per page. Spot colors can
also be process colors.
l
Swatchbook: A table of colors collected together as a series of color samples. The printer
uses premixed ink based on the color model identifier you specify; you look up the num-
bers for various colors in the table of colors in a swatchbook.
l
Web-safe colors: A palette of 216 RGB colors that browsers display the same way on
pretty much any color monitor, ensuring color fidelity. The Web-safe palette comes from
an era when monitors displayed perhaps thousands of colors, not the millions of today, so
there’s less of a reason to stick with Web-safe colors for HTML (Web) documents as there
had been in the 1990s; but do note that if you use other RGB colors in Web pages, differ-
ent browsers may display them slightly differently from each other, eliminating or distort-
ing some of the subtleties you see on your screen when laying out the pages.
Note
Until 2008, Pantone offered a six-color, high-fidelity variant of CMYK called Hexachrome. InDesign never sup-
ported this Pantone standard, but you may have files that use Hexachrome colors. Pantone used to sell soft-
ware called HexWare that added Hexachrome output capability to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. If you
import Hexachrome-containing color libraries from those programs into InDesign, those Hexachrome colors
appear as InDesign color swatches. n
Understanding Process and Spot Color

This section briefly explores the differences between spot and process colors, the two primary ways
of indicating color in print documents.
Identifying methods of color printing
Several forms of color are used in printing, but the two most prevalent ones are process color and
spot color.
Process color is the use of four basic colors — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (known collectively
as CMYK) — mixed to reproduce most color tones the human eye can see. A separate negative is
produced for each of the four process colors. This method, often called four-color printing, is used
for most color publishing.
Note
As with CMYK colors, RGB and Lab colors are created by mixing colors; however, InDesign refers to RGB and
Lab colors as mixed colors, leaving the term process color for CMYK because that’s an industry-standard term
for CMYK. n
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Spot color is any color ink — whether one of the process colors or some other hue — used for spe-
cific elements in a document. For example, if you print a document in black ink but print the com-
pany logo in red, the red is a spot color. A spot color is often called a second color even though you
can use several spot colors in a document. Each spot color is output to its own negative (and not
color-separated into CMYK). Using spot color gives you access to special inks that are truer to the
desired color than any mix of process colors can be. These inks come in several standards and
include metallics, neons, and milky pastels. You even can use varnishes as spot colors to give lay-
out elements a different gleam from the rest of the page. Although experienced designers some-
times mix spot colors to produce special shades not otherwise available, you probably won’t need
to do so.
There are several advantages to spot colors. You can use colors like metallic inks that are impossi-
ble to create with CMYK. Also, your printed results will be more consistent than with CMYK sepa-
rations, which can suffer from color shift (variation in the hue produced) over the length of a long

printed piece. But spot colors work only in objects that have distinct, continuous hue, such as a
solid brick red, that can be printed with just one ink. To produce any image with multiple colors,
such as a photograph, you need to use multiple inks, and because printing presses can traditionally
print only four to eight colors on a page, you have to mix colors to create the range of hues in such
multicolor objects.
Tip
If you create spot colors, I suggest that you include the word Spot as part of the name so that you can quickly
tell in a panel or menu whether a selected color will print on its own plate or be color-separated. InDesign
does use an icon to tell you whether a color is process or spot, as well as what color model (CMYK, RGB, or
Lab) in which it was defined (see Figure 8.1 later), but often it’s easier to see the word than a tiny icon. n
Note
Adobe programs, including InDesign, show that spot colors such as Pantone, Toyo, and DIC (Dainippon Ink &
Chemical) are based on the CMYK color model, even though they’re not. It doesn’t really matter because if you
print them as a spot color, they get their own plate and your printer uses the actual Pantone, Toyo, or DIC ink.
And if you color-separate them into process colors, you get the CMYK values shown in the Swatch Options dia-
log box; or you can hold the mouse over the color name in the Swatches panel (if the Tool Tips option is
enabled in the Preferences dialog box, as described in Chapter 3). n
Mixing spot and process colors
Some designers use both process and spot colors in a document in a procedure known as using a
fifth color. Typically, the normal color images are color-separated and printed using the four pro-
cess colors, whereas a special element (such as a logo in metallic ink) is printed in a spot color. The
process colors are output on the usual four negatives; the spot color is output on a separate, fifth
negative and printed using a fifth plate, a fifth ink roller, and a fifth inkwell. You can use more
than five colors, however; you’re limited only by your budget and the capabilities of your printing
plant. (Most commercial printers can handle six colors for each run through the press, and larger
ones often can handle as many as eight colors.)
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
211

Converting spot color to process color
InDesign can convert spot colors to process colors. This handy capability lets designers specify the
colors they want through a system with which they’re familiar, such as Pantone, without the added
expense of special spot-color inks and extra negatives. Conversions are never an exact match, but
guidebooks are available that can show you in advance the color that will be created. And with sev-
eral Pantone and HKS variations, designers can pick a Pantone or HKS color that color-separates
predictably.
You can set InDesign to convert some spot colors in a document to process colors while leaving
others alone: Just use the Color Mode pop-up menu in the Swatch Options dialog box, covered
later in this chapter. (For example, you can keep a metallic silver as a spot color so it prints with a
metallic ink, rather than be converted to a grayish color that is the closest the CMYK colors can
produce to simulate a silver. However, you would convert common colors such as deep blue, pur-
ple, and green to process colors, because the CMYK inks can combine fairly accurately to repro-
duce them.) You can also leave all spot colors as spot colors or convert all spot colors to process
colors.
Caution
Colors defined in one model and converted to another may not reproduce exactly the same because the phys-
ics underlying each color model differ slightly. Each model was designed for use in a different medium, such as
with paper or on a video monitor. n
Working with Color Models
Once you understand color terminology and the difference between process and spot colors, you
can start thinking about the type of colors you create in InDesign. (You define colors in the
Swatches panel, as described later in this chapter.) The color models fall into two broad classes:
l
Those that let you define a color by selecting a color from a color wheel (which represents a
spectrum of available colors) or by entering specific values for the color’s constituent colors
(the colors that make up the color), which include CMYK, RGB, Lab, and Multi-Ink.
l
Those that have a predefined set of colors, which you select from a palette of swatches.
These swatches include ANPA (American Newspaper Publishers Association, now called

the Newspaper Association of America, or NAA), DIC (Dainippon Ink & Chemical),
Focoltone, Trumatch, 13 variants of Pantone, eight variants of HKS, and two variants of
Toyo. There are also two sets of colors meant for use on computer displays and a third for
use on the Web. Plus, you can add additional palette sets.
Note
Most North American publishers use Pantone color models, also known as the Pantone Matching System
(PMS). Focoltone, HKS, and Trumatch tend to be used in Europe. DIC, Focoltone, and Toyo tend to be used in
Asia. The NAA’s ANPA color model is used by North American newspapers. Everyone uses CMYK. n
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
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Note
Several of the swatch library names are in all uppercase in InDesign’s menus and dialog boxes. That’s because
they’re trademarked names, which some people (such as those at Adobe) like to indicate by using all caps.
That’s just a convention and means nothing per se. (Legally, the word need only be treated as a proper adjec-
tive when used for marketing and sales purposes, although the owner needs to use the ® or ™ symbols in its
own materials to assert ownership.) n
Keep in mind that the colors shown are only on-screen representations; the actual colors may be
different. The differences are particularly noticeable if your monitor is running in 8-bit (256 hues)
color mode. Check the actual color in a color swatchbook for the model you are using. (Art and
printing supply stores usually carry these swatchbooks. See the sidebar “Using Color Swatchbooks”
for lists of other sources.) You can also calibrate your monitor display with tools from X-Rite
(
www.xrite.com
) and X-Rite’s Pantone subsidiary (
www.pantone.com
); this keeps the colors
as close as possible to actual output.
Tip

InDesign uses the same swatch format as Illustrator, so you can import color models into InDesign created in
or for Illustrator. InDesign also supports the Adobe Swatch Exchange (
.ase
) format that all Adobe CS2, CS3,
CS4, and CS5 applications that have color libraries support for color exchange. n
Anyone who uses a lot of color should have a color swatchbook handy. You probably can get one at
your local art supply store or from your commercial printer (prices typically range from $50 to $100,
depending on the color model and the type of swatchbook). If you can’t find a swatchbook, here’s
where to order the most popular ones:
l
Pantone: Several Pantone swatchbooks are available, including ones for coated and uncoated
paper, and for spot-color output and process-color output. If you are converting (called build-
ing in publishing parlance) Pantone colors to CMYK for four-color printing, I particularly rec-
ommend the Pantone Formula Guide swatchbook series, which also indicates which colors
reproduce well on RGB devices such as computer monitors.
www.pantone.com
.
l
Trumatch: Based on a CMYK color space, Trumatch suffers almost no matching problems
when converted to CMYK. Variants of the swatchbooks for coated and uncoated paper are
available.
www.trumatch.com
.
l
ANPA: Designed for reproduction on newsprint, these colors also are designed in the Lab
color space. The NAA’s Web site (
www.naa.org
) unfortunately has no substantive informa-
tion on these colors.
l

Focoltone: Like Trumatch, this color model is based on the CMYK color space.
www.apmedia.com
.
l
HKS: This color model is used mainly in Germany and other European countries, with vari-
ants for industrial printing such as on plastics. It uses various combinations of cyan, magenta,
and yellow with black overlays to achieve different shades.
www.hks-farben.de
.
Using Color Swatchbooks
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
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Understanding Paper Variation Models
Both the Pantone and HKS color models recognize that the type of paper on which you print
affects how a color appears, so their swatch libraries have variations based on popular paper types.
Here’s how they work:
l
Pantone Process Coated: Use this variant when you color-separate Pantone colors and
your printer uses the standard Pantone-brand process-color inks on coated paper. Colors
in this variant have the code DS added before the numerals in their names and the code C
after the numerals.
l
Pantone Process Uncoated: Use this variant when you color-separate Pantone colors and
your printer uses the standard Pantone-brand process-color inks on coated paper. Colors
in this variant have the code DS added before the numerals in their names and the code U
after the numerals.
Note
The DS code stands for digital SWOP, or Specifications fo r Web Offset Publications, a prepress standard for

the web-offset printing process used by magazines, catalog, and most high-run printing presses. n
l
Pantone Solid Coated: Use this variant when your printer uses actual Pantone-brand inks
(as spot colors) when printing to coated paper stock. Colors in this variant have the code
C appended to their names.
l
Pantone Solid Matte: This is the same as Pantone Coated but for paper with a matte
finish. Colors in this variant have the code M appended to their names.
l
Pantone Solid Uncoated: This is the same as Pantone Solid Coated but for uncoated
paper. Colors in this variant have the code U appended to their names.
l
Pantone Metallic Coated: This contains metallic colors designed for coated papers
(which helps make them shine like metal). Colors in this variant have the code C
appended to their names.
l
Pantone Pastel Coated: This contains pastel colors designed for coated papers (which helps
make them more lustrous). Colors in this variant have the code C appended to their names.
l
Pantone Pastel Uncoated: This contains pastel colors designed for uncoated papers
(which helps make them have the visual texture of eggshells). Colors in this variant have
the code U appended to their names.
l
Pantone Color Bridge: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well with process col-
ors, for use on coated paper. Colors in this variant have the code PC appended to their names.
l
Dainippon Ink & Chemical (DIC): Like Pantone, the DIC color set is a spot-color-based system.
/>.
l
Toyo: Similar to Pantone in that it is based on spot-color inks, this model is popular in Japan.

www.toyoink.com
.
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
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l
Pantone Color Bridge Uncoated: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well
with process colors, for use on uncoated paper. Colors in this variant have the code U
appended to their names.
l
Pantone Color Bridge Euro: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well with
process colors on European printing presses, for use on any paper. Colors in this variant
have the code EC appended to their names.
l
Pantone Solid to Process: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well with
process colors, for use on any paper. Colors in this variant have the code PC appended to
their names.
l
Pantone Solid to Process Euro: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well
with process colors on European printing presses, for use on any paper. Colors in this
variant have the code EC appended to their names.
l
HKS E: Use this HKS variant for continuous-form stationery. Colors in this variant have
the code E appended to their names.
l
HKS E Process: Use this HKS variant for continuous-form stationery printed with process
colors. Colors in this variant have the code E appended to their names.
l
HKS K: Use this HKS variant for glossy art paper (highly coated). Colors in this variant

have the code K appended to their names
l
HKS K Process: Use this HKS variant for glossy art paper (highly coated) printed with
process colors. Colors in this variant have the code K appended to their names.
l
HKS N: Use this HKS variant for natural paper (uncoated). Colors in this variant have the
code N appended to their names.
l
HKS N Process: Use this HKS variant for natural paper (uncoated) printed with process
colors. Colors in this variant have the code N appended to their names.
l
HKS Z: Use this HKS variant for newsprint. Colors in this variant have the code Z
appended to their names.
l
HKS Z Process: Use this HKS variant for newsprint printed with process colors. Colors in
this variant have the code Z appended to their names.
Note
When printing on uncoated stock with any colors designed for use on coated stock, you usually get weaker,
less-saturated color reproduction. n
Defining Colors and Tints
InDesign comes with a few predefined colors: [Black], [Registration] (black on each negative for
the printing press), [Paper] (white), [None] (transparent), and six common colors: cyan, magenta,
yellow, red, green, and blue. So you most likely want to add a few of your own.
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
215
New Feature
The six common colors’ names differ based on whether you created your document with a Print or Web intent,
as explained in Chapter 4. If you created a document with a Print intent, the color swatches are based on their

CMYK values (so cyan is C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0, containing 100 percent cyan and 0 percent of the other three
process colors, and green is C=75 M=5 Y=100 K=0, containing 75 percent cyan, 5 percent magenta, 100 percent
yellow, and 0 percent black). If you created a document with a Web intent, their names are RGB Cyan, RGB
Green, and so on. This contextual naming is new to InDesign CS5, replacing the old names of Cyan, Green, and
so on. Also new to InDesign CS5, the swatches are now set to the CMYK model if you created a print document
and all set to the RGB model if you created a Web document; previous versions of InDesign mixed CMYK and
RGB colors in the default Swatches panel colors. n
Before you can apply any colors — whether to bitmap images or to layout elements such as
strokes, text, frames, and shapes — you must first define the colors. InDesign offers five ways to
create colors: via the Swatches panel, via the new mini-Swatches panel in the Control panel, via the
Kuler panel, via the Color panel, and by double-clicking the Fill or Stroke iconic button on the
Tools panel. You can also import colors from other Adobe programs and from some color images.
No matter how you define colors, you have a couple of decisions to make first:
l
Do you want to create your own color by mixing basic colors such as red, green, and blue
(called RGB and typically used for screen display), or cyan, yellow, magenta, and black
(called CMYK or process colors, and typically used for printing presses)?
l
Do you want to use a color from an ink maker such as Pantone or Toyo? These colors —
called spot colors — are typically used as an extra ink on your document but can also be
converted to the standard four-process colors; therefore, they’re handy when you know
the color you want when you see it.
All of InDesign’s color-creation tools support both process and spot colors, and all have access to
the predefined colors such as Pantone and Toyo as well as to the free-form color pickers for mixing
CMYK, Lab, or RGB colors. If you plan to print the color on its own printing plate, you need to use
a predefined color so that you know the printer can reproduce it. If you plan to color-separate a
color into the four CMYK plates (so the mix of these four process colors simulates the desired
color), it doesn’t matter whether you use a predefined color or make one of your own. One advan-
tage to using a predefined color is that it’s easy to tell other designers what the color is; another is
that you get very close matches if you start with a predefined color and then end up having it

color-separated in some documents and kept as a spot color in others.
Note
If no document is open when you create, edit, or delete colors, the new color palette becomes the default for
all future documents. n
Creating colors the ideal way: The Swatches panel
The best way to create colors in InDesign is to use the Swatches panel. All colors in this panel get a
unique name and are tracked by InDesign. That means each such color is available to be used on
any object in your document, with no risk of having slightly different variants. Plus, you can
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
216
modify a swatch and ensure that all objects using that swatch are updated, and you can delete a
swatch and tell InDesign what color to use in its place. Furthermore, when you print, you have
control over how each color is handled (whether it is printed to its own plate, whether it is printed
at all, and whether there should be any adjustments to its ink density or screening angle). The top
of Figure 8.1 shows the Swatches panel.
FIGURE 8.1
Top left: The Swatches panel and its flyout menu. Top right: The various swatch type indicators in the
Swatches panel. Bottom: The new mini-Swatches panel in the Control panel.
Process color
RGB color
CMYK color
Show All Swatches
Show Color Swatches
Show Gradient Swatches
Create New Swatch
Delete Selected Swatches
Mixed-ink group
Spot color

Mixed-ink color
Lab color
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
217
New Feature
InDesign CS5 adds Stroke and Fill iconic buttons to the Control panel. If you click the triangle button to the
right of either button, a miniature version of the Swatches panel appears. It has the same capabilities of the
regular Swatches panel, including the same flyout menu — it’s just shorter in depth. (Figure 8.1 shows this new
mini-Swatches panel.) n
Tip
Because regular black can appear weak when it’s overprinted by other colors, many designers create what print-
ers call superblack or rich black by combining 100 percent black and 100 percent magenta. (Some use cyan
instead of magenta.) You can define superblack as a separate color or redefine the registration color as 100
percent of all four-process colors, and use that as a superblack. Note that superblack should be used only in large
areas — using it on type or small objects increases the chances of registration problems for those items. n
To create your own color, go to the Swatches panel (choose Window ➪ Color ➪ Swatches or press
F5) and select New Color Swatch from the flyout menu. You get the New Color Swatch dialog box
shown in Figure 8.2. Now follow these steps:
1.
In the Swatch Name field, give your color a name that describes it, such as Lime
Green or Bright Purple. You can also select the Name with Color Value option, which
uses the color values to make up the color name as is done for the swatches in Figure 8.1.
This option is available only for CMYK, RGB, and Lab colors, not for swatch-based colors
such as Pantone.
2.
In the Color Type pop-up menu, choose from Process or Spot. These are covered ear-
lier in this chapter; leave the color type at Process if you’re not sure.
3.

In the Color Mode pop-up menu, choose the mixing system or swatch library (both
are considered to be color models) you want to use: CMYK, RGB, Lab, or a swatch-
based model. (These are covered earlier in this chapter.)
You can change the appearance of the entries in the Swatches panel (and mini-Swatches panel) by
using the three options in the panel’s flyout menu: Name (the default), Small Name (a tighter list view),
Small Swatch (no names, just small icons), and Large Swatch (no names, just larger icons).
Also, use the Hide Options menu to suppress the display of the Stroke, Fill, Formatting Affects Container,
and Formatting Affects Text iconic buttons and the Tint field and pop-up menu; choosing Show Options
brings them back.
Finally, you can use the Show All Swatches, Show Color Swatches, and Show Gradient Swatches
iconic buttons at the bottom of the panel to control what swatches appear.
Personalizing the Swatches Panel
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
218
FIGURE 8.2
The New Color Swatch dialog box lets you define colors. (At left is the dialog box for
CMYK color mixing; at right is the dialog box for the swatch-based spot colors such as
Pantone colors.) An identical dialog box named Swatch Options lets you edit them.
You can name a CMYK, RGB, or Lab color anything you want. (Colors defined in other models use their
official names, such as Pantone 147U or ANPA 1732-4 AdPro.) To make it easier to remember what a
defined color looks like, you should use either descriptive names (such as Grass Green or Official Logo
Blue) or use names based on the color settings. Choose one naming convention to keep things consistent.
The benefit of using descriptive names is that they have intrinsic meaning, which helps designers
choose the right one. For example, there’s no confusion that Official Logo Blue is the color to be used
for the company logo, but the proper usage of the same color using a name based on its color values
won’t be so obvious.
The benefit of using color-value names is that designers who do a lot of color work know what that
color is. Grass Green could be any of several colors, but C=30 M=0 Y=50 K=5 can be only one color.

A good strategy is to use the color-value names for all colors — with a twist: For colors that have spe-
cific usage, add that to the color name. For example, you might use a grassy green for a particular fea-
ture article, so you would just name it based on its color values (for example, C=30 M=0 Y=50 K=5).
But your magazine logo color would be named something like Logo C=100 M=100 Y=20 K=25 so that
you have a reminder of this swatch’s designated usage.
InDesign names colors based on their values automatically if you select the Name with Color Value
option and choose Process as the Color Type when you define the color. For example, if you create a
color in the CMYK model, you might give it a name based on its mix, such as 55C 0M 91Y 0K for that
grass-green color — composed of 55 percent cyan, 0 percent magenta, 91 percent yellow, and 0 per-
cent black. (Believe it or not, this naming convention is how professionals have long specified colors,
starting back in the days of paste-up boards.) InDesign’s Name with Color Value option would name
this color C=55 M=0 Y=91 K=0. The same system applies to the RGB and Lab models.
How to Decide on a Color-Naming System
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
219
4.
For the CMYK, RGB, and Lab models, use the sliders to create your new color. A
preview appears in the box at left. For the swatch-based models, scroll through the lists
of colors and select one.
5.
If you want to create multiple colors, click Add after each color definition and then
click Done when done. To create just one color, click OK instead of Add. (The OK but-
ton becomes Done once you click Add.) You can also click Cancel to abort the current
color definition.
Using Kuler to add to your color swatches
There’s a Web site out there that lets users share palettes of colors they’ve created. The idea is to
give people with little fashion sense sets of colors that work well together. InDesign lets you tap
into these colors and add them to your Swatches panel, using the Kuler panel (choose Window ➪

Extensions ➪ Kuler). Note that you must have an active Internet connection to be able to use the
Kuler panel.
You go to the Browse pane in the Kuler panel and choose from the color swatch palettes — called
themes — already there. You can use the unlabeled pop-up menus at top and the search field to
narrow down your choices. Click one you want and then click the Add Selected Theme to
Swatches iconic button at the bottom right of the panel. Repeat for each theme you want to copy.
You can create your own themes in the Create pane (as well as edit an existing theme; click the
Edit Theme in Create Pane iconic button in the Browse pane to do so). First, be sure a document is
open — you cannot add Kuler colors to the Swatches panel if no document is open, even though
you can create swatches in the Swatches panel when no document is open so that they become
default colors for all new documents.
You start the Kuler theme creation with the Base Color, the one that determines the starting point
for the theme and any constraints applied to it. Use the color wheel and sliders to select a new
value, or drag its current color (the circles) to a new location on the wheel. There are also two
iconic buttons that let you take the color of a selected object and make that the base color: Add
Current Fill Color as Base Color and Add Current Stroke Color as Base Color.
To add colors, click the Add a New Color to the Theme iconic button. Kuler has a maximum of
five colors per theme. You can delete a color by selecting it and then clicking the Remove This
Color from the Theme iconic button.
You can have Kuler constrain your color choices using the Select Rule pop-up menu, which has seven
options: Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, Shades, and Custom. As you
choose each one, you see its effect on your color choices. (Custom lets you choose any colors.) You can
also constrain color options using the Affect the Other Colors in the Theme Based on a Harmony iconic
button; this has Kuler change the colors to what it considers “harmonious.”
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
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You can apply a color at any time to a selected object in your layout by double-clicking the desired
swatch in the Kuler panel. Note that this does not add the color to the Swatches panel automati-

cally, creating the risk of an unnamed color in your document (more about this later in this chap-
ter). To add the five colors in the Kuler panel, click the Add Selected Theme to Swatches iconic
button at the bottom right of the panel. (Note that all Kuler colors are added as RGB colors; you
can change these using the Swatch Options dialog box described earlier, as for any color swatch.)
You can save the themes and upload them to the Kuler site for other users to enjoy using the Upload
Theme to Kuler iconic button, if you have a Kuler account. You can also save a theme for later
access by clicking the Save Theme button. This does not add the colors to the Swatches panel or
upload them to Kuler; it does make the theme available in the Browse pane’s filter pop-up menu.
Figure 8.3 shows both the Browse and Create panes of the Kuler panel. Not shown is the About
pane, which just provides information about the Kuler site, nothing to actually use in InDesign.
Creating tints
A tint is a shade of a color. InDesign lets you create such tints as separate color swatches, so they’re
easy to use for multiple items. The process is easy:
1.
In the Swatches panel, just select a color from which you want to create a tint.
2.
Using the flyout menu, select New Tint Swatch. You get the New Tint Swatch dialog
box shown in Figure 8.4.
3.
Click and drag the slider to adjust the tint or type a value in the field at right.
4.
Click Add to create another tint from the same base color and then click Done when
you’re finished. (If you’re adding a single tint, there’s no need to click Add; just click OK
when done. Note that the OK button becomes Done once you click Add.) Click Cancel to
abort the current tint. Any new tint has the same name as the original color with the per-
centage of shading appended to the end of the name, such as Leaf Green 66%.
Note
You can create a tint from a tint, which can be confusing. Fortunately, InDesign goes back to the original color
when letting you create the new tint. Thus, if you select a tint swatch named Leaf Green 66% and move the
slider to 33 percent, you get a 33 percent tint of the original Leaf Green swatch, not a 33 percent tint of the

Leaf Green 66% swatch (which would be equivalent to a 22 percent tint of the original Leaf Green). n
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
221
FIGURE 8.3
The Kuler panel lets you copy predefined themes (left) — sets of colors — as well as create and even share
your own (right).
Add Current Fill Color as Base Color
Add Current Stroke as Base Color
Affect the Other Colors in the
Theme Based on a Harmony
Add a New Color to this Theme
Remove This Color from the Theme
Brightness slider
View Previous Set of Themes
View Next Set of Themes
Refresh the Themes
Edit Theme in Create Pane
Add Selected Theme
to Swatches
Add This Theme to Swatches
Upload Theme to Kuler
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
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FIGURE 8.4
The New Tint Swatch dialog box lets you define colors; a nearly identical dialog box named Swatch
Options lets you edit them. The difference is that, when editing, you can change all the other color values,

not just the degree of tint.
Tip
You can also apply tints to objects without creating a separate swatch for each tint. After applying the color
(described later in this chapter), select the object and change the value in the Tint field of the Swatches panel,
or use its pop-up menu’s predefined tint values. n
Mixing color swatches to create more colors
InDesign offers another type of color: mixed-ink color. Essentially, a mixed-ink color combines a
spot color with the default process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) to create new color
swatches. For example, you can combine 38 percent black with 100 percent Pantone 130C to get a
darker version of Pantone 130C (called a duotone, though InDesign doesn’t limit you to mixing
spot colors with just black, as traditional duotones do).
To create a mixed-ink swatch, select the spot color you want to begin with and then choose New
Mixed Ink Swatch from the Swatches panel’s flyout menu. (If you have no spot colors defined, you
won’t be able to choose this menu option.) You get the dialog box shown in Figure 8.5, in which
you select the percentages of the spot color and any or all of the default process colors you want to
mix. You also give the new color a name. Click Add to add another mixed-ink swatch based on the
current spot color and then click Done when you’re finished. If you’re creating just one color, click
OK instead of Add (if you do click Add, the OK button becomes Done). You can click Cancel to
abort the current mixed-ink color definition.
Tip
Be sure to test such mixes by creating a color proof first. They may not look as you expect when actually
printed because of how printing presses handle a color overlapping other colors. n
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Chapter 8: Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients
223
FIGURE 8.5
The New Mixed Ink Swatch dialog box lets you mix one or more spot colors with any or all of the default
process colors to create new shades and variations.
There’s more to mixed-ink colors than creating them one by one. InDesign lets you create mixed-

ink groups, which are a series of colors based on a spot color and one or more default process col-
ors. Figure 8.6 shows the New Mixed Ink Group dialog box, in which you select the colors to mix
as you do in the New Mixed Ink Swatch dialog box. This feature is handy to create a palette of col-
ors within a color range by mixing several colors in different amounts, as well as to create color
combinations known as duotones (a spot color traditionally mixed with black) and tritones (two
spot colors traditionally mixed with black).
However, you do more than simply mix the colors. In this dialog box, you specify an initial tint for
each color you want to mix, then how many times you want to create a color using it, as well as the
increment of color for each creation. This can be confusing, so I walk you through the options in
Figure 8.6.
The spot color Fire Orange is chosen with an Initial value of 50 percent, a Repeat setting of 3, and
an Increment of 20 percent. Also chosen is the Process Black swatch, with an Initial value of 0 per-
cent, a Repeat setting of 3, and an Increment of 10 percent. This combination creates 16 mixed-ink
swatches, as shown in the Swatch Preview section (click Preview Swatches to display the preview
colors in the Swatch Preview section of the dialog box).
InDesign uses the settings and first mixes 50 percent of Fire Orange with 0 percent Process Black.
That’s one swatch. Then it mixes 50 percent of Fire Orange with 10 percent of Process Black (add-
ing the increment of 10 percent). It does so two more times, for 20 and 30 percent of Process Black
mixed with the 50 percent of Fire Orange because there was a Repeat setting of 3. (Note that
InDesign stops at 100 percent saturation even if the Increment results in a higher number.)
So that’s four mixed-ink swatches based on 50 percent of Fire Orange. InDesign now repeats this pro-
cess three more times, starting with the next increment for Fire Orange: The result is one set of four
swatches using 70 percent Fire Orange, one set using 90 percent Fire Orange, and the final set using
100 percent Fire Orange (in addition to the first set using 50 percent Fire Orange) — note that a color’s
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Part II: Document Fundamentals
224
value can’t exceed 100 percent, so even though the math would make Fire Orange be 110 percent for
this final set of swatches, InDesign caps the value to 100 percent. So that’s a total of 16 swatches.

FIGURE 8.6
The New Mixed Ink Group dialog box lets you mix a selected spot color with any or all of the default pro-
cess colors in user-defined increments to create a range of new shades and variations.
Tip
To figure out how many swatches you can create using this feature, add 1 to the number in each of the Repeat
fields and then multiply the values. In the preceding example, you get 16 this way: (3+1) × (3+1), or 4 × 4, or
16. That’s because the Repeat setting indicates how many more variations to create in addition to those with
the base (Initial) value. n
Creating colors the risky way: Using the Color panel
Many people may try to use the Color panel (choose Window ➪ Color ➪ Color or press F6) to
define colors, but that can be a mistake. At first, you may not realize you can create colors from the
Color panel. It shows a gradation of the last color used and lets you change the tint for that color
on the current object, but if you go to the flyout menu and choose a color model (RGB, CMYK, or
Lab), you get a set of mixing controls (see Figure 8.7).
So what’s the problem? Colors created through the Color panel don’t appear in your Swatches
panel and so can’t be used for other objects. Called unnamed colors because they don’t appear any-
where, these can be dangerous for publishers to use. (Adobe added them to InDesign to be consis-
tent with how Illustrator defines colors — a foolish consistency.)
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