Spot color not importing from Illustrator to Quark

Carol A Thomas

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Jan 7, 2003, 2:12:27 PM1/7/03

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hello-- i have a quark file that contains a template created in illustrator that uses a illustrator designated spot color which i named "template". basically the color is 255R saved as an RGB spot color. it's so the template isn't "accidentally" printed. that color "template" appeared originally in the document, but is not showing up in the quark color palatte now. i think it may have been erased by another artist. but even when i re-import it, the color does not show up. it shows up in flightcheck, but NOT in the collect report out of quark. this same file has been giving us some problems printing to a Xerox Splash printer. No problems though to a textronics 780. Any ideas?

John Slate

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Jan 7, 2003, 5:08:38 PM1/7/03

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What happens if you add the color to QXP, being careful to spell it exactly the same?

Carol A Thomas

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Jan 7, 2003, 6:35:02 PM1/7/03

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The color appears in the palatte, but is not attributed to the Illustrator EPS. When I run the file through FlightCheck, it appears that the EPS is separating, showing up under the colors CMY & K. Even though in the Illustrator file, the color is called "Template" and is an RGB Spot color.

John Slate

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Jan 9, 2003, 12:32:52 PM1/9/03

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And when you import the same graphic into a new QXP doc?...

Carol A Thomas

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Jan 13, 2003, 12:03:45 PM1/13/03

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One of my crack Quark guys I think finally figured this out for me.
It seems that Quark, and several postscript RIPs have a problem ripping Illustrator files created in the RBG colorspace with RGB spot colors. If the spot color is created from the CMYK mode, but then changed to being a spot color in the swatch, that's OK, as long as the color space is still CMYK. It doesn't really seem to affect the intention of having a spot color in the first place (to avoid printing), as long as no one changes it in quark to be a CMYK separation. But you still end up with a spot color for the template that will appear as a separate color, and in turn on a separate plate.

When I made these corrections to the illustrator eps file, the quark file in turn had no problems printing to a variety of rips.

But, to answer John's question, when brought into another quark document, sometimes the color showed up, other times not. It was very hit or miss. And if you removed the color from the Quark color palatte, then re-imported the picture, you still had the same problem. The file would act like it didn't exist.

matt jackson

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Jan 14, 2003, 4:58:16 PM1/14/03

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Is the spot designated as "global" within the source AI file?

Joe Duhamel

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Jan 15, 2003, 11:58:30 AM1/15/03

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Remember that, when printing seps from Quark, you can and should select your printing plates. Do not select your imported spot color and you won't get that plate.

However, spot colors will print when not printing seps. It would be necessary then to Surpress Output for the template.

Jerry Matsumoto

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Jan 31, 2003, 11:01:00 AM1/31/03

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Have you tried copying the Pantone Swatches from the Illustrator folder into the Colors folder in the Quark folder?

Jerry Matsumoto

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Feb 3, 2003, 10:38:36 AM2/3/03

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Sorry Carol.. I didn't fully read your problem so my solution was totally out to lunch. I was having problems with Quark 4 reading the Illustrator 10 swatches period.