Updating colours across several documents

[Paul Mc]

Hi everyone, I've several documents which share a set of "brand" colours for text and shapes. I now need to change the colours across all the documents. I'm expecting that this may not be the only time I'm asked to do this so I'd like to rejig everything so that it can be done efficiently on the second and subsequent request.

The history: for the first document I created a "base" document with a document palette and used (standard?) colours defined in it. No Global or Spot colours (yes, I know - silly me). I then copied this document as the basis for the others and built the contents for each one.

Then came the client change requests. So I'm now in the position where I have several text frames and artistic text strings, for example, spread across several documents that are the wrong colour and need to be changed across all of them.

From my understanding I think I need a Global Colour in an Application Palette. However, this seems to be impossible to create. I can create Standard Colours in an Application Palette but this isn't bound to the objects that use the colour, instead it appears that the colour is copied from the palette when first assigned and after that the object's colour is independent. Is my understanding correct?

I feel that I've unwittingly painted myself into a corner with this one and that there is going to be a truck load of work applying these change requests. If anyone has any suggestions of how to ease the pain then I'd appreciate hearing them.

(As an aside, is there any fully comprehensive documentation that explains how the palette system works in AD, apart from the online help?)

I'm using the latest release of Affinity Designer on Windows10.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Paul Mc said:

From my understanding I think I need a Global Colour in an Application Palette. However, this seems to be impossible to create.

Make a document palette with the global colours and export it somewhere you'll be sure to find it again. Call it Important Client Global Colours.afpalette

Make a document palette and save it in a Template, name the template file something like Important Client Colours and fonts.aftemplate .

[Paul Mc]

Thanks @Old Bruce

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Make a document palette with the global colours and export it somewhere you'll be sure to find it again. Call it Important Client Global Colours.afpalette

If I do this I presume I'd have to import this palette into each of the documents and then visit every object and replace all the standard colours with Global colours from the palette? Then, when the colour changes again I'd modify the palette in the palette document, resave and then reimport the afpalette file to each of the documents again, or will the act of saving automatically update the other documents when they are opened? Sorry, for all the questions but I can't find anything that explains the mechanics of this.

 

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Make a document palette and save it in a Template, name the template file something like Important Client Colours and fonts.aftemplate .

Surely I'd only need the template file if I was starting again or adding another document to the set, no?

 

[Old Bruce]

15 minutes ago, Paul Mc said:

Surely I'd only need the template file if I was starting again or adding another document to the set, no?

Are you never ever going to do new work for this client?

The usefulness of Global Colours is that when a Client or yourself decides that the colour of a character's shirt is wrong then you change the Global Colour Character Able Shirt Colour from a particular shade of blue to another shade of blue and ever single instance of that shirt colour in every single artboard will change. Obviously the best practice is to make these global colours at the beginning of the project.

No the change will not happen for all documents, each will have to be changed. You could make try making one document with all the stuff from this one client. Retrofitting the colours is a pain, you are the only person who can decide whether or not this client's work will benefit from it.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Paul Mc said:

From my understanding I think I need a Global Colour in an Application Palette. However, this seems to be impossible to create. I can create Standard Colours in an Application Palette but this isn't bound to the objects that use the colour, instead it appears that the colour is copied from the palette when first assigned and after that the object's colour is independent. Is my understanding correct?

I feel that I've unwittingly painted myself into a corner with this one and that there is going to be a truck load of work applying these change requests. If anyone has any suggestions of how to ease the pain then I'd appreciate hearing them.

That is correct understanding. And it may appear even worse: If you create now in one document an palette with global colors and assign them to an object then copying/pasting this object to your other documents will maintain the object's global colors but it will not transfer their palette. They become global colors but without swatches, and thus may feel useless.

One little compromise unfortunately concerns future documents only but it reduces the need to work with a template or to import a palette: The Swatches panel allows to set one palette as Default. This makes this palette occur in every new document, and is kind of an hermaphrodite between an application and a document palette.

[joe_l]

3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Obviously the best practice is to make these global colours at the beginning of the project.

But wouldn't it be nice merging two palettes - one with old colours, one with new colours - and replacing the swatches or even better like it is working for styles: You import the new palette, get the warning that there are colours of the same name and you have to decide what to do.

[Paul Mc]

Right! OK. I'm starting to get it.

This is a one off project that I won't get again from this client - but I'd like to build a workflow that handles this situation well as I can see this being something that might happen with other clients in the future.

I should probably drop all the current designs into a single file and use artboards for each one rather than separate file. They are separate because it's easier when automating construction of the presentation PDF in AP which brings other content into the mix.

I'm prepared for the pain of rebuilding the colour assignments as I expected that to me necessary - at least once. What I wanted was to be confident that the new approach would allow for a more efficient pass the second or third time around.

[Wosven]

There's been some slight improvement regarding global colours.

Today, you can create a new document's palette, export it, and import it in another second document.

If you copy and paste objects using those global colours from the 1st document to the second document, when selecting an object, the colour will be selected in the palette!

It's a big improvement, since ??? …before, it was different.

 

Knowing this, it's perhaps easier for you to create and import this palette in the other document, and using the select by fill/stroke colour, to replace easily the colours for each object. Assigning a shortcut for "Select by same fill colour" for example, is handy.

I just hope you don't use more than ±10 colours!

[Paul Mc]

Hi @Wosven Thanks for that info. I didn't realise that was possible. That gives me another route forward.

13 minutes ago, Wosven said:

I just hope you don't use more than ±10 colours!

Only four, fortunately! But lots of items use them.

[Paul Mc]

Hi @Old Bruce well it looks like the artboard approach is great for making the changes but isn't able to be used for preparing the presentations I currently have set up in Publisher directly. I need more control over which images are selected and where and how they are placed. It seems that by default only the first artboard image is placed and subsequent ones are unavailable. I know I can open the AD file using AP and it will create a page for each but that's too crude. I'm going to look at the export persona to see if I can set that up to be an intermediary, so to speak, to create intermediate files that can be linked into the AP document.

[Old Bruce]

There should be something on the Context Toolbar in Publisher when you select the placed Designer Document with the Move tool. That should allow you to choose the Artboard you need.

[Paul Mc]

45 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

There should be something on the Context Toolbar in Publisher when you select the placed Designer Document with the Move tool. That should allow you to choose the Artboard you need.

You are correct. That's gets me going again. Thanks.

[thomaso]

41 minutes ago, Paul Mc said:

Only four, fortunately! But lots of items use them.

Don't forget about "Select Same …" (color, object type, etc.)