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Share swatches between Illustrator Documents

Mar 12, 2012 2:38 AM

Hi,

 

I have multiple documents that need to share the same swatches. I can't find a nice workflow for keeping them all in sync. At the moment I have a separate document that I use as a swatch library. Every time I change or add a swatch I have to resave the document as a swatch library, then re-import the library into every document that uses it, then reassign each swatch as changes are not picked up. This is really time consuming.

 

I am looking for a way to have a single swatch library that is shared between multiple documents, all of which dynamically update when I make changes to the library in the same way that an AI file can be shared amongst multiple documents and will reflect any changes made. At the very least I want to be able to reimport a swatch library and have any object using one of the library swatches update. I have tried placing the library document in the files, but it seems swatches are not carried over.

 

This is driving me crazy. It seems like once you share a swatch library there is no support whatsoever for edits to that swatch library being picked up by documents that use it even if you re-open the edited swatch library.

 
Replies
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Mar 12, 2012 4:37 AM   in reply to 1ndivisible

    Nope, not that I know of. On second thought you might toy with the recolor artwork tool a bit, though. This should at least facilitate updating multiple swatches, even if you still need to load the library manually.

     

    Mylenium

     
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  • Mathias17
    439 posts
    Feb 20, 2012
    Currently Being Moderated
    Mar 12, 2012 7:17 AM   in reply to 1ndivisible

    I don't think Aunt Illie offers a native solution. Looked for a plugin yet?

     

     

    Two related points that may help:

     

    1) Swatches Panel > Select All Unused (hit 'Delete Swatch' button). Or play the 1oth default action called "Delete Unused Panel Items" in the Actions Panel. This will clear all currently unused swatches.

     

    2) Define a custom swatch library. In the flyout of said swatch lib > Persistent. This swatch lib will now stay open and even open up when Illustrator starts. Keep it updated. It will always be there.

     
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 11, 2012 9:10 AM   in reply to 1ndivisible

    One possible workflow is to keep all of the related documents on separate artboards within the same master document. That way they can all share the same swatch library. It is simple to export a single artboard when the time comes.

     

    Each artboard can have its own dimensions. The navigation tools at the bottom-left of the screen make it really simple to jump from artboard to artboard, so it's almost like having tabbed windows.

     

    Just a thought.

     

    Brian

     
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