Import color palette using .ase file

[rudedog451]

Is it possible to add color definitions (using Framemaker 2015) using an Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) file?

I'm hoping there's a way, perhaps by adding a pointer in the maker.ini file, to these rather than having to manually add definitions for all the colors in our corporate palette.

[Bob_Niland]

Doubtful.

ASE can encode color models FM doesn't support (like Lab).

ASE can support primary values out of gamut for FM (even negative).

What color model is used for the corp colors? (I'd guess Pantone, nominally CMYK)

What is the work-flow target for the FM documents? (print, web, PDF)

When I've had to deal with this, it was Pantone (only) trickling down from above, with PDF as our document target, color only mattering for web and customer convenience printing. I hand converted every color to sRGB (which has complications if any are out of gamut (OOG) for sRGB, and many Pantone colors are).

Some PANTONE® COLOR BRIDGE™ books may provide sRGB values, but does Pantone document how any OOG colors were brought into sRGB gamut or if all colors were scaled to maintain a perceptual difference? Older P books don't provide sRGB, and due to copyright, any freebie on-line sources for conversions generally don't show up by searching on "Pantone", or even on the exact color names.

Then you have the problem that these are still uncalibrated CMYK or RGB values inside color-clueless FM, so you have to tweak the PDF workflow to ensure all color objects get tagged as SWOP, IEC 61966-2-1:1999, etc.

A competent art director* would provide both Pantone and calibrated RGB values for the enterprise palette.

_________

* "competent art director" might be an oxymoron.

[lcshrm]

Marketing is providing Pantone (PMS) colors, but is being kind and providing RGB for each. Yes, I'm aware that FM is color-clueless; it's long been a pet peeve of mine. I can't even find one of the specified Pantone colors in any of the available libraries. So, I started by selecting the Pantone ink when I could find it and then tweaked the RGB values to what marketing provided. All those FM provided differed from what marketing provided. 

So far, I've only added a couple of the provided colors. This is why I was wondering about the .ase file.

The workflow target is "all of the above," 🙂 although they seldom distribute hard copy docs any more.They use the same set of FM source files to generate both PDF and web-based help (using RoboHelp or Responsive HTML).

I'll remember to tweak the PDF workflow. I've not done a lot of that. Can you expand on your "SWOP, IEC 61966-2-1:1999, etc.?"

--L

BTW, the art director/branding dude here has (so far) proved to be very competent and, what's even better, very cooperative.He seems to appreciate that I care about incorporating branding in the docs. He did originally provide only Pantone info, but it wasn't at all difficult to convince him to also provide RGB, CMYK, and Hex values. Only a sentence or two convinced him that there were others that would need these if he really wanted the same color values used across the brand. He seems to share my concern about consistency of look-and-feel. That much is a very nice change from most of my clients, where marketing doesn't care what the docs look like.

[Bob_Niland]

re: Marketing is providing Pantone (PMS) colors, but is being kind and providing RGB for each.

RGB from what color space? How arrived at?

re: The workflow target is "all of the above," 🙂 although they seldom distribute hard copy docs any more.

So then printing from the PDF, and not needing CMYK or seps from you?

re: Can you expand on your "SWOP, IEC 61966-2-1:1999, etc.?"

See: ANSI Z535.1 Safety Colors in Frame

An FM document typically contains a mix of imported objects (which could be raster, vector, text or some composite thereof), FM art, and of course, native text (which might be color or not). The imported stuff may or may not be tagged with profiles, and the profiles could be anything, like Adobe RGB from Marketing, Epson RGB from your scanner or "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" from your camera. Any FM art or color text is untagged. You cannot get FM to control any of this.

In the PDF workflow you can get Distiller (and probably the PDF Settings for Save-As or Print-As) to override various tags. In my recent position, we had Distiller tag all except text for sRGB. Don't tag text without extensive testing. If you must match text to art, consider importing the text from Illustrator as EPS.

I've only played with full Acrobat/Distiller up through 9. It's possible that later versions have an option to tag only color text for color management, but I doubt it. Tagging all text for CM results in black text being composite black, which slows printing glacially, waste color ink/toner, and can look horrible on paper. It may also balloon the size of the PDF. There may or may not be aftermarket tools available to clean up this Adobe mess.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Given the colour values, you  can define your colour library (ACF file format). See the following message for details: Re: Framemaker color definitions--New

Alternatively, you can make colour sample swatches in Adobe Illustrator using the given swatches and then save this an EPS. Then import this file onto a Reference page. FM will then add these colours to your colour catalog.