Multiple Colour Swatches with same colour value but different names

[angusd000000]

Normally I find most of my questions have already been asked at some point, but I've looked all through the forums as well as a number of other well know ID websites, and noone seems to have asked this one. I can't believe noone has wondered about this though I'll try and keep it short.

When I work for a customer with corporate colours, I ask whether they have a Swatch Library, and if not I create one myself, just to keep colours correct. The problem is that many of the designers in our agency don't like using, don't want to use Swatch Libraries or .... who knows. So they create their own single colour swatches - and name them how they will -  when they need them. On top of this I receive files from other agencies working for the same customer, and they of course create and name their swatches as they will.

I would love that we ALL are using one Swatch Library, but that's not going to happen.

What this means is, through moving elements fromfile to file I end up with 6 identical colours in my Swatches which are all named differently.

E.g.

Light Green

65, 0, 100, 0

65,0,100,0

C=65 M=0 Y=100 K=0

Logo Green

Green

Etc, etc, etc.

Now this isn't such a big problem, I can just 'delete and replace by' another swatch 5 times.

But some of these custommers have 20 or 30 corporate colours. Multiplied by 5 or 6 people's different naming conventions and it gets annoying very quickly.

So. Question ...

Is there a method, or script, or something I've overlooked that lets me replace all colours swatches which have the same colour values in one go? So that my swatches panel doesn't have 200 or more swatches in it? (I do delete all unused first, but as they come into the file by copying elements they're usually in use).

Thanks for reading that all, Angus

Ooops, should add:

PC, CS6 (pushing to get them to upgrade to CC)

[SJRiegel]

There may be a way to script this, but I am sadly not versed in writing scripts.

Here is another reason to upgrade - as of CC2015.4, there is the ability to sort swatches by color values.
With that, you could sort, then select swatches with matching values and merge them.

[Alma_Strutt]

Hi Angus

I don't know how helpful this will be but it might save you a few clicks!

Ink manager will allow you to alias spot colours to another spot or to a cmyk colour. Only helpful if your unwanted colours are spots. (you can double click the unwanted cmyk swatches in the swatch panel and change them to spot) In Ink Manager select the unwanted colours and in the Ink Alias drop down menu choose the correct colour you wish them to be. You won't see any obvious change on screen, but if you view your document with 'Overprint Preview' selected from the View menu you can see how it will print.

You can find Ink Manager in a few places, one being in the Window Menu>Separations Preview. From the top right of the panel in the flyout menu you can select Ink Manager.

Hope this helps a little.

[winterm]

While you didn't upgrade...

AFAIK, there's no fully 'automagic' way to merge swatches with identical values, however, there is a nice script of scripting guru Marc Autret to sort them - much easier to catch and merge duplicates then.

Take a look here. The thread is pretty long to read, you can just copy code from the 'Correct Answer'...

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

1. In your Swatches panel, click on one of the two Swatches you wish to get rid of.
2. Shift click on the second Swatch you wish to get rid of to select both.
3. Hit the Trash at the bottom of of the Swatches panel.
4. In the dialog that opens, replace the deleted Swatches with the Swatch you wish to keep.

[winterm]

that's good after sorting swatches, right?

I think, there's even simpler technique:

1. first select the swatch you want to keep.

2. then select all 'duplicates' to be removed (replaced by the '1st' swatch). You can select using Shift or Ctrl, selection works just like in Windows Explorer.

3. in right-click menu select 'Merge Swatches'.

no additional dialogs, quick'n'easy!

takes way longer to describe than to do

[Alma_Strutt]

Hi wintery - I don't think that feature is available in the version of InDesign Angus is currently using.

[Alma_Strutt]

Sorry autocorrect replaced winterm with wintery. Quite apt for this time of year!

[winterm]

Alma Strutt wrote:

Sorry autocorrect replaced winterm with wintery. Quite apt for this time of year!

Thank You for 'sorry', I really appreciate it

[winterm]

OP wrote:

Ooops, should add:

PC, CS6 (pushing to get them to upgrade to CC)

That's exactly the version I'm using now (CS6 on Win7, 64-bit), and it works perfectly. Used it numerous times. Didn't test on any flavor of CC, though.

[Alma_Strutt]

Jeff I believe that's what Angus is currently doing and was hoping for something quicker as he tends to have many swatches with the same value but different names.