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Affinity Designer: Export EPS files and retain Pantone


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It could be user error, but when I save my logo as an EPS, it converts the Pantone colors to EPS. Is this true for other people? The PDF retains Pantone info, but it also adds a ridiculous amount of points to your shapes. Thanks in advance!

 

Stephen:)

Screen Shot 2018-07-12 at 7.53.33 AM.png

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Hi there,

We only support spot colours and Pantone colours in PDF, not eps. If pdf is adding extra points, it might be because you're using "outer" or "inner" align options in the stroke options. It is a known issue and already been logged. 

Thanks

Gabe. 

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Hey Gabe! Is Pantone in eps a possibility in the future? Overall, editing/managing Pantone colors in Designer need to be addressed. Once a color is selected, there is no way to go back and designate the global Pantone color as a spot color. And there is a find function in the swatch Palette, but not in the Pantone specific palette. Also, the colors are organized out of order and instead by color. It takes forever to hover over the color to find the ones that you want. And it would be great to have an option where you could see the colors in list form like Illustrator.

All that being said, I love your program a lot. There are just a few tweaks that would truly make it a game changer. And congrats on the new release of the designer app! I'm looking forward to downloading it today!

Keep up the great work!

All the best!
Stephen:)

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3 hours ago, segts said:

...Once a color is selected, there is no way to go back and designate the global Pantone color as a spot color.

It's a spot color if it is a spot color palette. There is a little dot in the lower right corner:

capture-001988.png.a9b231617e2a047f85221b330d45c54a.png

...And there is a find function in the swatch Palette, but not in the Pantone specific palette.

There is a search field at the bottom of the swatches panel:

capture-001987.png.bbb6ce3843728e46f27a8f3b61717d6f.png

...Also, the colors are organized out of order and instead by color. It takes forever to hover over the color to find the ones that you want. And it would be great to have an option where you could see the colors in list form like Illustrator.

They Pantone libraries are simple CSV files. First, make a backup of the folder containing the Pantone libraries.

You can make a copy of the folder, say on your desktop. Open them in Excel or whatever spreadsheet application, sort anyway you would like and save as a CSV. Copy those to the AD Pantone library folder and Bob's your uncle.

Here I am displaying the version 3 Pantone Solid Uncoated library. It's in alpha order:

capture-001990.png.b5feb71879f87972aa6f38ecd28009d5.png

Oh. And for whatever reason Serif thought it would be a good idea to rename spot colors as their damn Global moniker. It's a dumb decision that I hope gets changed. So in the screen shots you can see that it is using the actual spot color name.  Once added tot he document palette, right-click and choose Rename Spot... The name will be the real name and it will be highlighted. So just ctrl/cmd + c to copy it. Then right-click over the swatch again and choose Rename Global Color... Then paste the copied spot color name. See? Stupid.

Mike

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10 hours ago, MikeW said:

It's a spot color if it is a spot color palette. There is a little dot in the lower right corner:

Thanks for this. Because Designer doesn't have the ability for me to "select same stroke color/fill color/stroke weight," I have been using the create Global Color palette which has a different presentation.

465843772_ScreenShot2018-07-13at10_33_30AM.thumb.png.6483e783ed4e3dc89c3c47d01d29bdf4.png

Also, when you make a Global Color, you have the option to make it spot or not. If you want to edit that decision later, you can't there is no spot option once the global Pantone color has been created. For the Global Color dialogue box, there is no easy way to sort or search like that standard swatch palette. 

Global Color and layer organization is the only way that I can easily change colors in a design, but it takes a lot of planning from the beginning.

1670165100_ScreenShot2018-07-13at10_39_01AM.png.ce3de79c7da9bb3c88594459558cc805.png

 

10 hours ago, MikeW said:

There is a search field at the bottom of the swatches panel:

That's for the standard swatch palette. I would love the same for the Global Color dialogue box. See above.

In the swatches, by default, it makes the Pantone color "spot" and there is no way to undo the spot option. Looks like making the color a spot option is only available when you first set up a Global Color. The need to turn the "spot" function on and off has to do with printing for any programmers that might be interested. For print, It's easier to use "spot" for Pantone when selecting a tint of the color. For some printers, like our magazine, we need to turn off the spot option when it goes to print so that it treats the tint as a CMYK build or we'll get an error in file production. It's also a good way to see what colors make up the Pantone tint build so that you can tweak the final CMYK build to make it print friendly. I hope this helps.

I hope this all helps!

 

S:)

 

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Trust me, I know the swatches need an overhaul. And ... And ...

As for exporting a spot color without it being a spot color (thereby converting to whatever color space desired), click on the More button and uncheck Honor spot colors.

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20 minutes ago, segts said:

Thanks! I'm hope that "same..." gets introduced. It's really hard to edit files without it :)

Yep. Selection is one of the tasks that can take quite some time without some sort of select same. Illy's is about the best. CD's works but I have a macro that works better than its native version.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 weeks later...

@MikeW Has there been any progress on saving spot colors as Pantone in EPS-or-have you solved the issue with extra nodes being introduced when you try to export to PDF? I would do the two-step process that @Slayman suggested, but the introduction of all that bad geometry didn't work for me when sending my files to an enamel pin manufacturer. I ended up sending them the eps with a Pantone color guide on the side of the art so that they could do a "select same" trick to swap the color correctly for me on their end.

On the idea of Select Same, you could take a page out of Inkscape's playbook. Before they introduced the feature, they let user be able to select multiple objects by using an XML editor. Tried to find a video for you, but I did find a forum thread that may help :)

http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1724

Quote from forum:

"You open the XML Editor (under Edit) and look for the color used (select the object on the canvas, and it gets highlighted in the XML Editor), copy the color (it is one of the values in "Style" e.g.
fill:#ffff00 and insert it into the Style Box in the Search Dialog (Strg F) 

Hit enter"

---

Exposing the XML data while you figure out the UI and design of select same might be helpful for people. Thanks again for all you do! I would love to be able to report that export has been improved for my blog post review of Affinity Designer on desktop and the iPad and using it as a tool for creation and production.

S:)

Screen Shot 2018-09-19 at 7.30.01 AM.png

Edited by segts
Added note at the end :)
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  • 2 years later...
On 8/21/2018 at 5:06 AM, Slayman said:

I have the same issue where the EPS does retain spot colors. The only work around I have is to export as a PDF, which relates things. Then open it in Illustrator and save down as a EPS from there. Please fix this.

I am hoping for this same ability.  Is it available now??   I use VersaWorks cutting software and it imports EPS files and uses a spot color called CutContour.    This isnt retained once exported  😲.    Only fix so far is to import into Illustrator 😐.     Any work around?? 

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