Updating a colour in a swatch

[SarahB]

I am creating a document in Publisher and have created a colour swatch with my organisation's corporate colours. I have various text and table styles based on the colours in that swatch.

The organisation has decided on a minor change to one of their corporate colours, so I edited that colour in my swatch and updated the CMYK values. None of the styles that use that colour have been updated. I had a back up copy of the document so tried creating the new colour first and then deleting the old colour, expecting that I would be asked which colour I want to replace it with, but nothing.

Do I really have to go through every style and update the colour individually? Surely if you use a colour in that swatch and then edit the colour, everything using that colour should change. What am I missing?

[walt.farrell]

In order for objects to react to a change in a color, the color must be global, and that requires that the color be in a document palette. If you're using global colors, and you change one, then objects that use that color will also change. If you have not used global colors, then yes, you will have to update each individually.

You mention "going through every style". Global colors would be used with objects. I don't think they can be used with Styles, because a Style is an application-level function, and global colors are document-specific because of their requirement for a document palette.

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Clr/globalClr.html

[SarahB]

10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In order for objects to react to a change in a color, the color must be global, and that requires that the color be in a document palette. If you're using global colors, and you change one, then objects that use that color will also change. If you have not used global colors, then yes, you will have to update each individually.

You mention "going through every style". Global colors would be used with objects. I don't think they can be used with Styles, because a Style is an application-level function, and global colors are document-specific because of their requirement for a document palette.

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Clr/globalClr.html

Thanks for your response. So a 'global' colour isn't global at all and is only specific to the document you are working on. Obviously it is a lack of training on my part (I've been using Designer for all of a week but in a bit of a rush to recreate a job to avoid having to continue using other software), but I created an application palette for this client since I will be working on various jobs for them and thought the correct colours would be available for every job. I'm not sure I see the point of an application palette if you can't make changes to a colour within it and have that colour update everywhere it is used.

Everything was going so well, the rest of the software seems far more intuitive than what I have been using until now, but the way colours are managed seems strange.

 

[walt.farrell]

I think you would need to create a document palette, export it, and import it into other documents as a document palette. That should get you the colors as global in both documents. But if it changes you'll still need to make the change in two documents.

You could also create a template, put a document palette in it, and start each new project using that template. You'll still need to change each document of the palette changes, but this avoids having to export and import the palette.

 

[SarahB]

12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I think you would need to create a document palette, export it, and import it into other documents as a document palette. That should get you the colors as global in both documents. But if it changes you'll still need to make the change in two documents.

You could also create a template, put a document palette in it, and start each new project using that template. You'll still need to change each document of the palette changes, but this avoids having to export and import the palette.

 

Thanks Walt, that sounds like a solution.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.