Spot colors and overprinting (Publisher on Mac desktop)

[Christian R]

The help section says : "When publishing to PDF, the Honor spot colors option in the Export Settings dialog (File>Export>PDF>More) lets you include spot colors in your output. You can also make the spot colors overprint in the same panel."

Does anyone know where that checkbox is gone (to set spot colors as overprint)?

Also the help section says: "To make an existing global color overprint: On the Swatches panel, -click the global color swatch's thumbnail, then select Overprint." But there is no way to make a color overprinting. I get a pop menu with e.g. 'Edit fill' but clicking on that option there is again no option to make that color overprint...

Am I overlooking something, or is it really that annoying?

[joe_l]

18 minutes ago, Christian R said:

Am I overlooking something, or is it really that annoying?

Partially annoying, sometimes, but not here. Have a look at the Swatches panel. Is your spot color global? It must have a triangle. For me it worked. Just rightclicked the global spot color and checked Overprint.

[Callum]

16 minutes ago, Christian R said:

The help section says : "When publishing to PDF, the Honor spot colors option in the Export Settings dialog (File>Export>PDF>More) lets you include spot colors in your output. You can also make the spot colors overprint in the same panel."

Does anyone know where that checkbox is gone (to set spot colors as overprint)?

Also the help section says: "To make an existing global color overprint: On the Swatches panel, -click the global color swatch's thumbnail, then select Overprint." But there is no way to make a color overprinting. I get a pop menu with e.g. 'Edit fill' but clicking on that option there is again no option to make that color overprint...

Am I overlooking something, or is it really that annoying?

Hi Christian,

If you go to File > Export select PDF then hit the More button you should find a check box for Honour Spot Colours. This should do what you are looking for!

Thanks
c

[Christian R]

5 minutes ago, Callum said:

Hi Christian,

If you go to File > Export select PDF then hit the More button you should find a check box for Honour Spot Colours. This should do what you are looking for!

Thanks
c

Hi Callum,

So checking 'honour spot colours' will also make them overprint? If so, that would be good and should be better indicated.

@Callum

[Callum]

1 minute ago, Christian R said:

Hi Callum,

So checking 'honour spot colours' will also make them overprint? If so, that would be good and should be better indicated.

@Callum

Sorry I misread your original post and thought you were looking for the honour spot colours check box. The method Joe mentioned should work for you. You may also need to enable the Over Print black check box found in the export menu.

[Christian R]

11 minutes ago, joe_l said:

Partially annoying, sometimes, but not here. Is your spot color global? It must have a triangle. For me it worked. Just rightclicked the global spot color and checked Overprint.

I see, my starting color wasn't a global colour yet. Somehow I'm always strucked and messing up everything in the color and swatches panels. So my starting point was a document with some lines on it which are spotcolors but not swatches. It would be great to change them somehow into overprinting spot colors...

 

[lacerto]

In Affinity apps, the overprint attribute is not an object property but a swatch property. While overprinting is supported natively and when exporting to PDF, all overprint attributes are lost when a PDF file containing them is opened for editing. They are lost also if a PDF is placed for being passed through but the operation fails and the file needs to be interpreted instead.

So, to be able to apply overprinting on a fill or a stroke, you first need to have a global color swatch and then give it the overprint property, and then apply the swatch on any object that needs it.

Note too that when you open a PDF containing spot colors, the spot colors themselves are retained (and can also be reproduced), and show on the Tint view of the Color panel when an object with a spot color assignment is selected, but they are not added onto a document palette as swatches, so in order to give e.g. an imported stroke with a spot color an overprint attribute, you need to add the spot color onto a document palette, make that swatch global (the spot color assignment itself is not global even if the Color Panel says so), and then define the Overprint attribute.

 

[Klababa]

When I create a global overprint color, it is made into the document palette. But when I want to add it to another palette, it is no longer global or overprint. It is bad. So I thought that I will not decide whether the color is global or overprint and I will set the object to multiply. But it doesn't export spot colors to pdf!!! God why, affinity, why???