How to Use Color Swatches in InDesign

Graphic designers know using a consistent color palette is good marketing. InDesign software makes using the same colors throughout your document easy when they can be placed on a swatches palette, a sort of holding tank for your favorite hues.

Instructions

1. Open the swatches palette from the Window drop-down menu.

2. View the list of colors already saved in your swatches palette. Depending on what version of InDesign you are working in, some color libraries may already be installed. InDesign CS3, for example, comes with Pantone colors.

3. Edit the swatch by double clicking on the color. In the Swatch Options window, you can change colors to process or spot, or CMYK, RGB, lab and a host of other color values. You can then choose your own unique name for the swatch, such as "true blue," by unchecking the box "Name with Color Value."

4. Choose whether your swatch color will affect the object or text (boxes at top of palette; one with a "T" and the other with a small box inside a box).

5. Add a swatch by choosing New Color Swatch, a button located at the bottom of the palette.

6. Use the eyedropper tool from the main tools menu to create a swatch of the same color used elsewhere in your document. Place the eyedropper over a graphic or text with your chosen color and point and click on the exact color. This will automatically place this color in the foreground color box on the main tools menu. Double click on the box and choose "Add RGB Swatch." The same color, with its corresponding values, will show up on the palette. You can then choose to rename this swatch.

7. Remove swatches from the palette by clicking on the trash can button along the bottom of the palette.

Tips & Warnings

• Turn your graphic into a transparent object by clicking on the swatch at the top labeled "None," with a strike through it. To fill it with white, choose "Paper." (The name is "paper" and not "white" because printing on a different color paper may not produce white, per se.)

• Fill a stroke (a boundary around text or a graphic) with a swatch by clicking on the small box with a border (located just behind the full box) on the button at the top left of the palette.

• Change the tint of the swatch by using the tint slider at the top of the palette. Note: this is not the same as using transparency.

Resources

• Adobe Help Resource Center
• Basics of Adobe InDesign