How to Prepare for Pantone Printing

Pantone Matching System is a universal color system for matching color accurately.

Matching color is a science for commercial printers who understand that not everyone views color exactly the same. The Pantone Matching System takes the guess work out of matching color and allows printers to match color accurately, according to The Marsid-M&M Group. In addition to color accuracy, using Pantones will ensure color consistency for each page of your printed piece.

Things You'll Need

• InDesign, QuarkXpress, PageMaker (desktop publishing software)
• Photoshop (professional digital imaging software)
• Adobe Acrobat (PDF - portable document format software)

Instructions

1. Call the commercial printer who will be printing your job. Print shops are not created equal. Ask what software they work with and if the job should be done using process colors (CMYK) or spot colors (Pantone). Then be ready to tell them what you want printed, the type of paper, finishing needed, and quantity, so the printer can provide an accurate price quote. If you don't know what kind of paper is best for printing your job, then ask the printer for suggestions. For example, 80-pound text weight coated paper is a popular choice for printing newsletters.

2. Begin the layout of your print job using desktop publishing software such as InDesign. Choose coated Pantone color for this print job so the color prints accurately on coated paper. For example, PMS 185C tells the printer the exact swatch and the "C" stands for coated since you'll be using coated paper to print your job. If the paper were uncoated, you would use PMS 185U ("U" for uncoated).

3. Prepare all images in a professional digital imaging program. Digital images have a color mode of RGB, which is for the computer. The image needs to be made CMYK, which is cyan, magenta, yellow, black, for printing. If you use Photoshop, go to Image>Mode>CMYK Color to make the image ready for print. Pantone colors are not used because they cannot match the color of an image as well as CMYK colors.

4. Save your print job using the format of the desktop publishing software you're using. Make certain to send the printer the fonts, images and Pantone colors contained in the document so that they display properly.

5. Save the document as a portable document format (PDF). The PDF maintains the integrity of the native file so it appears exactly as it does on your computer monitor. Documents and images often appear differently on various monitors, therefore saving a file as a portable document format ensures that the document with its images and color will print accurately.

References

• The Marsid-M&M Group: Pantone colors ensure better printing quality

Resources

• Printing with Pantone Colors and Spot Colors