can't delete unused spot color.

[Kathleen]

I can't delete unused spot color pms 329c in an IDCS4 file. When pms 329c is selected the swatch trash can is greyed out. Nor can I merge the color with the correct spot.

The only option I seem to have is to alias 307 onto 329 in inkmanager.

Flightcheck Pro note:"One or more spot colors are defined, but are not used anywhere in the document."

Suggestions on how to delete the pms 329c?

kat

[Roy McCoy]

Is it in an imported graphic?

Roy

[Kathleen]

Yeah, you'd think with the swatch trash being greyed out it would indicate and imported graphic. But according to Flightcheck Pro that isn't the case:

"One or more spot colors are defined, but are not used anywhere in the document."

"The document" refers to the InDesign file. Flightcheck Pro has a different way of notating ai files that have a wrong pms and ais are all fine.

kat

[Roy McCoy]

Isn't such a program supposed to be able to correct something like that?

Roy

[Robert Severn]

Another reason why Illustrator's Color Palettes Are Better.

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Bob

Robert K Severn
Severn Associates
Marketing Services
rse...@severnet.com

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[Bret Perry]

If you can't see it in separations preview when you look only at that
color, then it doesn't really matter, tell your printing vendor to check
his pdfs for blank plates before making plates, if he doesn't do that
already he is a fool or a crook.

If you are just curious or afraid client will think you are foolish...

Make a PDF and see if the color is in the separations previewŠ

The spot color may be in the eps or .ai file but not applied to anything
that actually prints, like a line with no stroke weight or a space.
Or it more likely is in a graphic that is behind something and hidden or
cropped.
Or it is in a PDF that you placed in ID, maybe a multi-page PDF but you
are using only one page of it and the color is on another page.

Can you click on the error and get flightcheck to tell you what graphic it
is in? Or at least what page? If not keep going...

Assuming more than one page document. Print separations (output tab of
print dialog), with crops and page info, and see which pages output a
"plate" for it.
If you get pages with the color name, but blank otherwise, that is the
page the hidden item is on. Concentrate on that page.

Or Make copy of file and delete the graphics one by one until you can
delete/replace the color
(either graphics on the page that printed blank with color name or every
graphic if there are more pages than graphics)
Then open up that graphic and delete the color from it, re-import/update
it in ID in original doc.

See if you can delete color now, if not, make another copy and delete
graphics one-by-one again (you have more than one "bad" graphic in that
case.

By graphics, I mean placed PDF, .ai, eps, Photoshop file (PSD or EPS) --
those are the only types that can have a spot color -- unless you placed
another ID file into your file, then that is a "graphic", too.

Or run the graphics ALONE (not ID file, but all separate .ai, eps, PDF,
PSDs) thru Flighcheck and see which has the spot color that way.)
You can do that by dragging them to the Flightcheck icon all at once.

Bret Perry
Studio IT Manager/Production Artist
ph 626-463-9365
fax 626-449-2201
bpe...@russreid.com

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[Kathleen]

Bret, I've tried everything you mention in the past for getting rid of an unwanted ID color. And I had run the ai files thru Flightcheck Pro prior to getting Flightcheck Pro's "One or more spot colors are defined, but are not used anywhere in the document."

Over the years eventually I just give up and alias the ink, just to be sure though nothing shows shutting off inks in Seps Preview.

But it's kind of fun to Flightcheck Pro everything and try and ferret out the evil buggers.

Kat

[Bret Perry]

LOL, yes the Ink Aliasing takes all the fun out of it, thank goodness! :-)