Swatch in Palette Locked

[snowleopard]

I got a job from a client where they use a Pantone color. I want to substitue this color globally. So I normally go to the Swatch Palette, find the color, double click on it to get the Swatch Options, and enter the new color (Pantone, CMYK, RGB, etc). But I can't do that, as the Swatch is locked. The name is gray'd out, the Color Mode is gray'd out, as are all the CMYK values. The only thing I can do is select whether I want spot or process, but neither selection allows me to change the values or the color in any way. I can't delete the swatch, nor can I select the same color as a new swatch and replace it. I can find nothing in the ink manager to override this, nor do any changes to proof set-up, or do anything.

Needless to say, there is nothing in the In Design manual that pertains to this at all.

Any help?

[Dave Saunders]

Make a new color then delete the old one and replace it with the new.

If you can't delete the old one (that sometimes happens), then look at this topic: raymond theriault "[Perm] A fix for swatches that can't be deleted!" 11/24/02 1:06pm </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.1de6b4ec/1> for a solution.

Dave

[Bob Levine]

Are you sure that swatch wasn't assigned by a placed graphic?

Bob

[John Hartwell]

funny...I'm having this exact same problem this exact same day!

I tried the "create new swatch, delete old swatch" trick to no avail...got an error message telling me that that name was already in use. The placed graphic idea sounded reasonable, and in fact I was headed in that direction, but alas, after replacing all updated Illustrator files with corrected color info, I still come up donuts.

This is a most inefficient problem...being able to globally replace swatches should be a no-brainer. Does anyone know what's going on?

[snowleopard]

Try the above link to the archive and follow it. It works!

Thanks to whomever posted it. Made my day much easier.

[snowleopard]

Here is a cut and paste:

1. Create a new document.

2. In that document, create a process color but give it the same name as your spot color that you want to remove from the reluctant document.

3. Make a book consisting only of the two documents.

4. Use synchronization, choosing swatches only. Make sure both (or all) pages are selected.

5. Synchronize (if you don't have all pages selected - how it defaults, you can't synchronize).

6. Now you should be able to delete the color in the previously reluctant document.

The NEW document must be the source when you synchronize the colors. Otherwise, you end up replacing the colors in the new document with the 'bad' ones in the old.

THIS REALLY WORKS. It doesn't take that long either.

[Henning...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks!

This is the only way to delete a swatch linked to an Ill eps, then copied to another document without the eps.

What I mean is:
1. New doc.
2. Place Ill eps with spot color, say Pantone Warm Grey 11 C (this was the swatch I had problems with).
3. Create an object of any kind, say a rectangle.
4. Rectangle fill color: Pantone WG 11 C.
5. Select rectange. Copy it.
6. Create another new document.
7. Paste rectangle in new document.
8. Swatch Pantone WG 11 C is greyed out, cannot be deleted, replaced or changed.

Thanks again for this excellent solution!
/henning