Dark gray text that should be black

[Freddy Davis]

I recently submitted a manuscript to a printer to be printed, but they responded back that they found an issue in the text that needs to be corrected. Their note read:

"We have identified text in your manuscript that may appear black on your monitor but is actually dark gray on pages: "

How do I correct this problem and make sure all my text is solid black?

[MikeTO]

If you've used text styles, edit the base style group on which your styles are based and change Colour & Decorations > Font Colour to CMY=0 and K=100. You want to ensure that you're not using a rich black.

If your document is RGB you should consider switching it to CMYK in Document Setup > Colour.

Cheers

[Freddy Davis]

Thank you for your reply. I did not use text styles, so I assume from your comment that I don't need to do anything to change font color on that.

I went to Document Setup > Color and changed it fro RGB to CM"YK/8. Can I assume that this automatically changed all of the text in the document to solid black?

[Old Bruce]

47 minutes ago, Freddy Davis said:

... Can I assume that this automatically changed all of the text in the document to solid black?

No.

[Old Bruce]

49 minutes ago, Freddy Davis said:

 I did not use text styles, so I assume from your comment that I don't need to do anything to change font color on that.

If there are no Text Styles applied and the text colour is still a "Rich Black" (meaning not cmy=0 k=100) then what I would do is make a Character Style, name it "My Black" where the only thing I set was Text Colour set to cmyk 0, 0, 0, 100. Everything else would be No Change. Select all the text and apply the My Black Character Style.

[MikeTO]

If you didn't use text styles but all of the text is the same rich black, you can change it all at once with Find and Replace. Don't enter any text in the Find or Replace fields. Click the Gear icon for Find and then choose Format. Set Colour & Decorations > Font Colour to exactly match the rich black you used and click OK. Repeat with the Gear icon for Replace but set K100 black this time. Then click the Find button and click Replace All.

[Freddy Davis]

Thanks so much for your help on this. I think I got it solved. I guess I'll know for sure when I resubmit it. 😀