make global swatch default

[dandyse]

I have created a custom swatch spot color. everytime I restart Designer it's gone. how can I set it to be saved and shown as a default to select from.

 

[Old Bruce]

Global colours are stored in Document Palettes. So you'll have to export the Palette and Import that palette into new documents.

[dandyse]

thanks for the quick reply.

I have fumbled around with application palette, document palette, custom palette ... find it confusing and not intuitive.

so there is no way to make a palette that is loaded everytime I start Designer?

I will have to either create the swatches everytime or load my custom palette everytime? not really?

if so: unbelievable, is anyone using this software for his business? 

 

Edited January 25 by dandyse

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @dandyse 

9 minutes ago, dandyse said:

a palette that is loaded everytime I start Designer?

This would be an Application Palette, which are covered in the Swatches Panel Affinity helpfile page.

However, Application Palettes do not support Global / Spot colours, as these are file specific swatches.

I hope this clears things up!

[dandyse]

well ... thank you ... but ... I have tried just that before reading your post:

select application palette

create global spot colour

surprisingly it did not show up in the palette

I had to select document palette again to see it - how super not intuitive / illogical is this? 

so I cannot create a spot color swatch that is loaded everytime I restart the software?

not even create a palette that has this color so I can load it by hand everytime I restart the software?

I will have to create the spot swatch everytime by hand?

please.

 

[Old Bruce]

17 minutes ago, dandyse said:

so I cannot create a spot color swatch that is loaded everytime I restart the software?

Essentially correct.

18 minutes ago, dandyse said:

not even create a palette that has this color so I can load it by hand everytime I restart the software?

You can make and export a Document Palette with the Global colour(s) and import that palette for the documents which need it. Your template could even have several Document Palettes with several Global colours in it.

If you do a lot of work with the same size and colour format, profile documents you could make a Template document which would have that Document Palette already in it. But I think importing the palette is most likely more versatile.

[Dan C]

20 minutes ago, dandyse said:

create global spot colour

surprisingly it did not show up in the palette

I had to select document palette again to see it

As confirmed above - 

33 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Application Palettes do not support Global / Spot colours

Global Colours are document specific and cannot be added to an Application Palette.

If you require a Global / Spot Colour in every document, this can be done with Document Templates.

I'd recommend:

• Create a new document (File > New)
• Add a Document Palette and create your Global / Spot Swatches within this
• Use File > Export as Template to save this as an .aftemplate file.
• Under File > New > Templates you can add this template document here.

Now, when creating your Affinity document, create this from your Template and you'll find that your required Global / Spot colours are saved within the Document Palette, which is automatically loaded with the file.

I hope this helps

[MikeW]

I dunno if you are using a Mac or Windows PC...the screenshots below are from a Windows PC.

One can create spot color palettes. I haven't tried making one the default that shows up upon starting AD. But they are "immediately" available just choosing from the Swatch palette dropdown. I have two such spot color palettes shown below. 

If you go this route, I suggest copying one of the existing palettes to your desktop, rename it, then open in a text editor, remove the defined colors--but leave the first one until you create the definitions you desire. That way you can follow the formatting. Then copy that file to the Pantone folder.

[walt.farrell]

You can create a document, and for that document you can create a Document Palette using the Swatches panel. Once it's created, you can set it as a default palette for a specific color format (e.g.,  RGB/8, CMYK/8, etc.) using the panel settings (burger menu) for the Swatches panel.

Once you've done that, whenever you create a new document using that color format, the document will also contain that Document Palette as it existed when you made it a default.

Notes:

1. This won't affect documents that exist already.
2. Changes made to the Palette in one document won't affect any other documents.

[dandyse]

16 hours ago, Dan C said:

As confirmed above - 

Global Colours are document specific and cannot be added to an Application Palette.

If you require a Global / Spot Colour in every document, this can be done with Document Templates.

I'd recommend:

• Create a new document (File > New)
• Add a Document Palette and create your Global / Spot Swatches within this
• Use File > Export as Template to save this as an .aftemplate file.
• Under File > New > Templates you can add this template document here.

Now, when creating your Affinity document, create this from your Template and you'll find that your required Global / Spot colours are saved within the Document Palette, which is automatically loaded with the file.

I hope this helps

That's one point I don't understand: why are global colours document specific not application specific – I mean they are GLOBAL, like globally available.

I have done like you said: export document palette as template. But when I open file->new->template, it is grayed out, cannot be selected.

 

14 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You can create a document, and for that document you can create a Document Palette using the Swatches panel. Once it's created, you can set it as a default palette for a specific color format (e.g.,  RGB/8, CMYK/8, etc.) using the panel settings (burger menu) for the Swatches panel.

Once you've done that, whenever you create a new document using that color format, the document will also contain that Document Palette as it existed when you made it a default.

Howdy! That's it! And this even makes sense because colour definitions are specific for the choosen color format. Thank you!

I still find the usability very confusing. E.g. why not make the right mouse button in the colour box open options to delete / rename / create a new color? Using the burger menu all the time with all the other options is very counter intuitive. Many other things have a awkward look & feel and made me close Designer often being frustrated. Why the hell don't the developers just make it the way it is common sense after years and years of people working with graphic programs like Corel or Illustrator? No need to invent the wheel once again!

Anyway, thanks everyone for their quick replies and help.

 

Edited January 26 by dandyse

[thomaso]

17 hours ago, Dan C said:

18 hours ago, Dan C said:

Application Palettes do not support Global / Spot colours

Global Colours are document specific and cannot be added to an Application Palette.

If I create in APub V1 a new document from the Affinity presets in "New…" (I don't use 'template' documents yet) then the new document opens to me with a document palette 'by default'. I don't know how I did achieve this as I also don't know why only new RGB documents (preset "Print" or "Photo") open with a palette (named "global") that contains spot colours, while new CMYK documents (preset "Press Ready") open with a palette (named "1_CMYK") without any global or spot colour.

I assume this default document palettes result from tests/experiments I did months or years ago with several palette ex-/imports with the goals to try to import a custom spot colour palette as application palette (it did import but with failing/misleading swatch properties) and also to sort my default palettes in the menu, which let me rename > export > delete > re-import all palettes.
[ As far I remember not the palette name but rather the order of import / creation defines the palette order within the menu. – I just tried to reproduce / create another 'global' default document palette but can't get it to work with simple export + import and also don't know if a second would be possible at all. ]

I can't tell what finally caused the appearance of this document palettes in new documents. It appears the swatches marked as 'global' in this 'default' palette do indeed work 'global' within a document as usual (means locally global, not globally global). Also its spot colours seem to export correctly in an X-4 PDF, their overprint setting included.

So it appears that default 'document' palettes with 'global' swatches are technically possible already in Affinity V1 without the use of template documents while "just" an accordingly clear interface seems to be missing.

[Dan C]

7 minutes ago, thomaso said:

If I create in APub V1 a new document from the Affinity presets in "New…" (I don't use 'template' documents yet) then the new document opens to me with a document palette 'by default'. I don't know how I did achieve this as I also don't know why only new RGB documents (preset "Print" or "Photo") open with a palette (named "global") that contains spot colours, while new CMYK documents (preset "Press Ready") open with a palette (named "1_CMYK") without any global or spot colour.

It sounds as though you've associated a Document Palette with a Document Colour Format previously, as Walt covered above -

17 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You can create a document, and for that document you can create a Document Palette using the Swatches panel. Once it's created, you can set it as a default palette for a specific color format (e.g.,  RGB/8, CMYK/8, etc.) using the panel settings (burger menu) for the Swatches panel.

Once you've done that, whenever you create a new document using that color format, the document will also contain that Document Palette as it existed when you made it a default.

This is also covered in the Swatches Panel helpfile I've linked previously in this thread. (V1 version).

The information I've provided previously in this thread - that Global/Spot Colours cannot be added to an Application Palette, and when creating palettes in Affinity, Application Palettes are the only type of Palette that are available in any document (ignoring 'System Palettes', as these are specific to macOS and not the Affinity apps) - remains accurate.

As Mike has shown, if a user is willing to manually add files into the Affinity resources folder, it's certainly possible to create and add a Palette that is available for all documents, but this will require additional tools outside of Affinity, as we're unable to export palettes to CSV files at this time.

I hope this clears things up

[thomaso]

49 minutes ago, Dan C said:

It sounds as though you've associated a Document Palette with a Document Colour Format previously, as Walt covered above -

Thank you! and sorry that I did not notice the related, already existing info in this thread above. – Indeed, I must have used this option (I have two .propcol files in ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher/DefaultPalette/) and then forgotten it.

5 hours ago, dandyse said:

Howdy! That's it! And this even makes sense because colour definitions are specific for the choosen color format. Thank you!

I still find the usability very confusing.

It appears that the various possible "default palettes" (one for each colour space) may refer to the same palette containing global & spot colours if wanted … while palettes anyway don't require to be separated by colour spaces but may contain swatches of all spaces, gradients included.

So, apart from the fact that such a custom "Default Palette" appears for future documents only, it is a way to get a palette of global & spot colours available as document palette for every new document. It seems a later update of changes done to a 'Default Palette' is possible simply by reassigning the palette as default via the menu once again to make it appear accordingly in all related documents.

Although this doesn't enable swatches that work globally application-wide but at least it enables us to achieve a permanent, default document palette for all future documents, e.g. for easier access to certain corporate colours of a project or client. Also this may reduce a limitation of objects stored in the Assets Panel which appear to be stored with global/spot colours but without transferring their swatches if placed in a document. Unfortunately, even the existence of an asset spot colour as swatch in a palette doesn't highlight this swatch as being used by an asset until object + swatch get reconnected.

[Petar Petrenko]

Where I can find PANTONE libraries under .msi installers?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Where I can find PANTONE libraries under .msi installers?

I can't check a Windows system right now, but have you looked where MikeW showed above? That was V1, I think, but it should be the same for an MSI install of V2, I think. (Though the application name might be different.)

 

[Petar Petrenko]

Here it is another idea:

In the attachment is the default CorelDRAW palette. It is a .CSV file and you can put it in the PANTONE folder and have it active all the time. You can open this file with a NotePad and see how it is organized, so you can create your own palettes and put them in the same folder.

CorelDRAW default colors.csv