Colors

About color and color models

Know more about colors and color models in FrameMaker like CMYK, RGB and HLS.

Before you begin

Applying color to frames and objects is a common publishing task, whether you are publishing in print or exporting to the web. FrameMaker provides color libraries to choose from colors defined by a color vendor. You define and modify colors by adjusting the color model you’re using or by choosing a predefined ink from a color library based on the color model.

Before applying color to your documents, prepare in these ways:

Identify the output format of your document

The final output of your color document can greatly affect color decisions:

For online output, use the RGB or HLS color models. Your guide to correct color is how your documents look on your monitor.
For desktop printing, use the CMYK model to define your colors and test them on the printer you’ll be using.
For commercial printing, use colors from a library supported by your commercial printer. Don’t rely on the onscreen versions of library colors; use a swatch book.

Learn the limits of the medium

Become familiar with the range of colors available on your monitor or printer. For example, a system set to display 256 colors cannot display tints below 16% accurately in FrameMaker.

By default, FrameMaker publishes CMYK values when printing or saving as Adobe PDF. If you opt to use RGB values while saving as a PDF, FrameMaker converts color values to RGB and creates separations in equivalent RGB values. EPS graphics, however, are separated according to the color values specified within the EPS graphic itself.

FrameMaker retains the color values specified within Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) graphic objects, including CMYK colors, RGB colors, grayscale, spot colors, device-independent colors (such as CIE L*a*b color). The graphical information within an EPS file is passed directly into the output PostScript stream, bypassing any Windows GDI processing. EPS graphic objects can be created from text, vector graphics, or images of any type supported by Adobe PostScript. This capability allows EPS graphics to be saved or exported from many Adobe applications, as well as other third-party application programs.

Color models

When you use a color model to define colors, you manually adjust its components, such as the amount of pure red or the amount of saturation.

You can choose from three color models: CMYK, RGB, and HLS.

CMYK: Use the CMYK model to create color separations for four-color process printing. Colors are created by combining cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) inks. In color separation, each color component is printed on a separate plate, in a different concentration, depending on the desired color.
RGB: Use the RGB model to create colors that are viewed on a monitor (for example, for online documentation). Colors are created by combining red, green, and blue (RGB) light.
HLS: Use the HLS model if you are familiar with color wheels. This model is most like the one artists use to mix colors and is often used in software color pickers. Colors are created by adjusting hue, lightness, and saturation (HLS). Hue controls the amount of red, green, yellow, blue, and so on. Lightness controls the lightness or darkness of a color. Saturation controls the amount of gray in the color.

Manage color libraries

Learn how to manage color libraries in FrameMaker like crayon, DIC, Focoltone, Grays. Also, understand how to work with color definitions.

When you use a color matching system—a color library—you choose from colors defined by a color vendor. Commercial printers can precisely match the formula represented in a vendor swatch book.

Every color from a library is defined as either a spot color or a process color. A spot color is printed on a printing press with premixed inks by using a single printing plate. A process color is printed on a press by overlapping dots of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) on separate plates.

Before choosing a color from a color library, ask your commercial printer for a list of supported libraries. For best results, choose colors from a swatch book, rather than relying on the onscreen representation of the color.

FrameMaker includes these libraries:

Crayon: Adobe developed the Crayon library to provide access to common RGB colors using everyday names in alphabetical order. Do not use Crayon colors as spot colors.
DIC: The DIC Color Guide provides spot colors. It is used mostly in Japan.
FOCOLTONE: The FOCOLTONE® Color System provides 860 process (CMYK) colors.
Grays: The Grays library, developed by Adobe, provides both process and spot shades of gray in 1% increments.
MUNSELL: The Munsell System provides colors defined on the RGB model.
Online: The Online color library provides 216 “web-safe” colors that have a consistent appearance on all platforms when viewed with a web browser.
TOYO: The TOYO Color Finder provides over 1000 colors based on the most common printing inks in Japan.
TRUMATCH: The TRUMATCH® 4-Color Selector provides over 2000 process colors that cover the CMYK visible color spectrum in even steps.

View color definitions in a color library

Choose View > Color > Definitions, choose a library from the Color Libraries pop-up menu, and then click About.

Add a color library for use in FrameMaker

You can add any library file formatted in the ASCII Color Format (.acf), version 2.1 or earlier, or in the Binary Color Format (.bcf), version 2.0. You can’t use FrameMaker to save a .bcf library file.

Place the library file into the fminit\color folder and restart FrameMaker.

Work with color in objects

Understand how to work with color objects in FrameMaker, and assign a color or a tint on an object.

The method you use to apply a color or a lightened version of a color (a tint) depends on the current selection. Any entry in a Color pop-up menu can be applied to FrameMaker text or objects. FrameMaker supplies a set of 16 standard colors that you can add to.

You can apply two types of tints:

Color-level tints are tints you define and name by using View > Color > Definitions.
Object-level tints are tints you apply to an object that lighten the original color of the object by a specified percentage.

Note: You can’t colorize TIFF files.

Apply a color or tint to text or an object using formatting features

Select the text or object to color or tint.

Apply color to paragraphs, selected text, graphics, text lines, and equations using the appropriate formatting feature. Features include paragraph or character catalog or designer, or the Tint and Color pop-up menus on the Tools pod. The following table shows what features to use for tasks that vary:

To apply color or tint to	Use
A text frame	The Fill pop-up menu on the Tools pod to change the frame fill pattern from None. Then use the Color pop-up menu or the Tint pop-up menu to assign a color
Cells in a table	The Color pop-up menu in the Custom Ruling and Shading dialog box, or in the Table Designer
Change bars	The Color pop-up menu in the Change Bar Properties dialog box
Conditional text	The Color pop-up menu and the New Color button in the Edit Condition Tag dialog box
All drawn objects and text	The Color pop-up menu in the Tools pod (hold down Shift+Alt and choose a color).

Apply a tint to an object using a fill pattern

Select the object you want to tint.
Choose one of the first eight fill patterns from the Fill pop-up menu on the Tools pod. The fill patterns apply the following percentages to the current color of the object.

Fill Pattern

Tint Percentage

100%

90%

70%

50%

30%

10%

3%

0% (color of paper)

Fill Pattern	Tint Percentage
	100%
	90%
	70%
	50%
	30%
	10%
	3%
	0% (color of paper)

Define and modify colors and tints

You create or modify colors and tints by adjusting the color components in the color model or by choosing a predefined ink from a color library. New colors and tints appear in all Color pop-up menus and scroll lists.

You can also use the New Color button in the Add Condition Tag and Edit Condition Tag dialog boxes to select unique colors for condition tags. Unique colors let you distinguish one tag from another.

Tip: You can’t change the 16 standard colors, except for their Print As and overprint properties. However, you can define your own colors using lowercase versions of these names (black, blue, and so on). The Crayon library has its own versions of these colors, which you can use or redefine under another name.

All define procedures require the appropriate document window or book window to be active and View > Color > Definitions, selected.

Do one of the following:
- To define a new color, enter a new name in the Name box.
- To modify an existing color (or base color), choose its name from the pop-up menu to the right of the Name box. You can also type its name until the color definition appears.
Specify how to print the color by choosing one of these options from the Print As pop-up menu:

Tint

A tint is always displayed and printed in the same manner and on the same plate as its base color. The base color also determines the color components.

Spot

Defines a spot color.

Process

Defines a color printed with CMYK inks.

Don’t Print

Defines a color that is not printed.
To change the color model, choose from the Model pop-up menu. (Base color determines the color model of the tint.)
Adjust the color components by dragging the sliders or entering values. If you’re defining a tint, choose a color from the Base Color pop-up menu and set the percentage. To reset any changes you’ve made, click the Current color box.

Note: Perhaps your monitor cannot accurately display the color or tint that you define. For example, a tint value of less than 10% of the base color probably does not display accurately onscreen, or on some printers.
To make this color print on top of other colors when printing separations, choose Overprint from the Overprint pop-up menu.
To create a color, click Add (or click the New color box); to modify the current color, click Change.
Define or modify additional colors as needed, and then click Done.

Define a color from a color library

Choose a library from the Color Libraries pop-up menu.
Choose a color from the library of predefined colors. If you know the name, you can quickly scroll to it by starting to type its name.
Click Done. The color you choose appears as the Ink Name in the Color Definitions dialog box.

Note: Colors from color libraries often have a preferred color model and type. When you choose a color, the color model or type sometimes changes automatically. Ordinarily, do not change these settings or the color definitions of a library color. If you do, the Ink Name disappears and the color no longer matches the formula defined by the vendor. To restore the original definition, choose the color again from the library and click Change.
To make this color print on top of other colors when printing separations, choose Overprint from the Overprint pop-up menu and click Add.
Define additional colors as needed, and then click Done.

Tip: If you want to use the operating system color picker to define a color, choose Common Color Picker. You use these color pickers just as you do in other applications.

Delete a color or tint

Choose a color or tint from the Name pop-up menu. (You can’t delete the basic 16 colors.)
Click Delete. If the color is in use, an alert message asks whether you want to change items that use this color to black. If you delete the base color of a tint, the tint becomes a percentage of black.
Repeat the process to delete more colors. When you’re finished, click Done.

Note: Color definition names support the Unicode text encoding standard.

Assign a color to an object

Choose the color from the Color menu.
To use a tint of the color, choose a tint value from the tint menu. If the value you want doesn’t appear on the menu, choose Other from the menu, enter a tint value, and click Set.

If an object isn’t visible after you assign it a color, make sure that the color isn’t in the Invisible scroll list in the Define Color Views dialog box for the current view.

You can also assign the same color to all objects in a document.

Note: To control whether an object overprints or knocks out objects beneath it, use the Overprint pop-up menu. For information, see Print output.

Set up and display color views

A color view specifies which colors are visible. For example, if your document uses black and a spot color, one view could display both colors and another view could display only the spot color.

Both colors visible and only one color visible

For each view you set up, specify which colors you want to display, which to display as cutouts, and which not to display at all. Cutouts display as white when overlapping different colored objects.

Make the appropriate document window or book window active. If a book window is active, select the documents you want to affect.
Choose View > Color > Views.
Select a view number and move the color names to the appropriate scroll lists. Tints do not appear in this dialog box; they appear along with the color they were based on.

To move a color, select it and click an arrow, or double-click it. To move all colors, select a color and Shift-click an arrow. To reset any changes you’ve made, click Get Default.

Tip: Leave View 1 unmodified, with all colors (except white) in the Normal scroll list. When you draw an object in a color that is invisible in the current view, FrameMaker automatically switches to View 1.
Repeat step 3 for each view you want to set up, and then click Set. The currently selected view is displayed.