AfPub. How to tell what color swatch is assigned to text?

[ETC]

I took a color from a picture and used it for text on that page. Now I need to find that color and use it elsewhere. When I select the colored text, I cannot tell what color swatch is assigned to it. Does it show up somewhere? Thank you.

[dominik]

3 minutes ago, ETC said:

I took a color from a picture and used it for text on that page. Now I need to find that color and use it elsewhere. When I select the colored text, I cannot tell what color swatch is assigned to it. Does it show up somewhere? Thank you.

Hi @ETC,

you could use the color picker and sample the color from the text you want to copy the color from. Then you can recreate a swatch from it and name it accordingly.

Another idea is to show the swatches as list (in the small 'hamburger menu' at the top right). There you can see the color values and compare them to the sampled color in the color picker. This is a manual process. There is no search function, unfortunately.

d.

[thomaso]

41 minutes ago, ETC said:

I took a color from a picture and used it for text on that page. Now I need to find that color and use it elsewhere. When I select the colored text, I cannot tell what color swatch is assigned to it. Does it show up somewhere?

Did you create a swatch at all from the picked picture color before you assigned the color to the text? If yes, this swatch will get highlighted in the swatches panel when you select the text if the swatch color definition wasn't changed after it got assigned to the text. – To make sure a swatch will remain assigned even if its definition gets changed you would use a document palette and the swatches explicitly (!) as global colors.

[ETC]

@dominik Thank you. I ended up doing just that - sampling the text. Not what I wanted to do, though.

@thomaso Thank you. I don't understand AfPub's color stuff at all. I could navigate ID's, but this … I have just created a "Document Palette". However, it's name "Unnamed", and I can't even figure out how to rename it. I've got RGB vs. CMYK issues, too, but I've posted elsewhere about that.

[dominik]

1 minute ago, ETC said:

@dominik Thank you. I ended up doing just that - sampling the text. Not what I wanted to do, though.

@thomaso Thank you. I don't understand AfPub's color stuff at all. I could navigate ID's, but this … I have just created a "Document Palette". However, it's name "Unnamed", and I can't even figure out how to rename it. I've got RGB vs. CMYK issues, too, but I've posted elsewhere about that.

Well, glad you got it sorted out. Some things we have to learn anew coming from InDesign.

To rename a color palette you go to the small 'hamburger menu' at the top right.

Cheers,
d.

[ETC]

28 minutes ago, dominik said:

Well, glad you got it sorted out. Some things we have to learn anew coming from InDesign.

To rename a color palette you go to the small 'hamburger menu' at the top right.

Cheers,
d.

Thank you. Found it. But there are scores or hundreds of colors in there. I'm used to naming them for the months of the calendar I'm working on, since I pick the text colors from the photos on the calendar. But I don't see that the list highlights the color I'm using, and there are many similar shades. Struggling.

[dominik]

3 minutes ago, ETC said:

But I don't see that the list highlights the color I'm using, and there are many similar shades. Struggling.

I just tried. If I create a document palette from the colors in the document the highlighting does not work. This may be a bug and should be reported (will do later).

If you manually add a color to a palette and then select an object later the highlighting does work. Perhaps you first try it in a simple test document to understand the relations. That should help to organice the more complex file.

d.

[h_d]

Hi ETC,

In the Swatches studio, click the Hamburger and choose Add Document Palette:

 

This will give you a palette called "Unnamed". Click the hamburger and choose Rename Palette... and give your palette a name.

To the right of the palette name is an icon three squares and a plus sign. Hover over and you'll see it says "Add current fill to palette". Click it.

Your current fill is now in your palette:

Right click (ctrl-click, alternate click) on the colour and choose Rename fill:
 

 

 

Pink for February:

 

Rinse and repeat...

 

[thomaso]

Note: In Affinity even in a document palette not every swatch is global !
But every global swatch has to be in a document palette (unfortunately), that's why you need a document palette for global swatches.

To add a global swatch use the right of the two buttons:

You also can click it before manually creating a document palette, then one will created by the app.

[ETC]

Wow! That's great help! Maybe I can get my mind around this stuff! Thank you.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, ETC said:

I've got RGB vs. CMYK issues, too, but I've posted elsewhere about that.

You placed 2 further posts meanwhile, each as additions to existing threads but with differing topics, right? That might quite likely confuse, you and other users. Especially regarding black text in 100 K do exists various threads already you could use to get info or to add your question. As far I remember you mentioned to have set the text in RGB black. If yes, this can't result in a 100 K black (consider how colors work: RGB black = 0 for each of its 3 channels, converted to CMYK it has so to say "no reason" to use the K channel only but tries to use each of the 4 channels. For 100 K text use the existing 100 K black swatch, it's right of the palette pulldown menu together with none, gray and white)

[ETC]

@thomaso Well, I'm finally back to briefly wade into the deep waters of colors in AfPub again… Thank you for your patience.

I do not even know what 100 K Black is. The calendar will be printed via offset press, and I think that means I need to supply a PDF with CMYK. Somehow in InDesign this just happened or I just set it to CMYK somewhere. (1) Do I need to know what 100 K Black is to do a good job on this calendar and not frustrate the print shop?

(2) Is it OK if a file is started as RGB and later the "Color Format" is changed to "CMYK/8"?

(3) Is CMYK/8 what I want for offset printing?

(4) Do I need to find out from the print shop what type of paper they will print the calendar on? I assume that matters for quality of colors.

At this point, I have created global colors for some of the months. One is Black, and I selected "Overprint" when making it so the swatch is listed as "Black Overprint" in my Global palette. I made it overprint for this reason: when I printed a sample page of the calendar (on a color laser printer), the text that should have been black looked strange -- faded out probably because of being superimposed on other colors. I looked up "overprinting" on the web, and learned that such things happen. Here is what the global palette looks like so far (but you can't tell it's a global one after you've made it – best I can tell).

(5) I still have been unable to tell what text has precisely what color assigned to it. Seems as if I should be able to right click or something and see the "code" for a given swatch and the "code" of the swatch assigned to a given piece of text. I'm just looking for consistency of colors.

Thank you!

 

[ETC]

I have moved on. I hired someone via www.upwork.com to do the work, since it was over my head. I did finally figure out some of the color stuff, but there was still a lot in AfPub that I didn't have time to learn. So I've outsourced it for now. Maybe little-by-little I can learn in the future without deadlines for a calendar …

Thank you, everyone, for your kind help!