Inkscape Community

Help Using Inkscape => Beyond the Basics => Topic started by: RC on July 19, 2018, 10:13:59 AM

Title: Print colors
Post by: RC on July 19, 2018, 10:13:59 AM

Hello,

     This issue has been brought up in the past, but I've yet to find a viable solution.  I am a print designer and NEED to use CMYK and spot/Pantone colors in my work.  Is there any way to effectively use these profiles in Inkscape?  If not, will it be coming soon?  The program is otherwise really great, but it's ineffective for me without being able to use the right form of color output.


Thank you,
~RC

Title: Re: Print colors
Post by: Moini on July 20, 2018, 05:54:00 AM

There once was a way to generate CMYK pdfs via an extension, but that doesn't work anymore. The built-in functionality is for previewing colors on screen, and for usage and import into Scribus, but as far as I could find, it doesn't work very well, and is generally really hard to use.

Currently, your best bet is to draw in RGB, or to set a color profile and choose your colors from that (sometimes doesn't work well), but then to move your drawing into another program for conversion to CMYK.

There is currently an effort going on for planning how to do CMYK with Inkscape, and to fund this development with user donations. It's going to be focused on export functionality. It will require a lot of user engagement when it is made public, and it will require new volunteer developers to do it. If you know someone who would be interested to help, please ask them to watch out for news about this on the Inkscape website, or, if they are a developer, to contact Inkscape developer via their mailing list.

Title: Re: Print colors
Post by: brynn on July 20, 2018, 07:56:55 AM

Here's a tutorial for using Scribus with Inkscape to get CMYK color.

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/getting-cmyk-colors-from-inkscape-to-scribus

Title: Re: Print colors
Post by: Moini on July 20, 2018, 05:50:43 PM

There's another way, easier than the (missing) link above:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29013254/how-to-use-cmyk-colors-in-inkscape

(brynn's link is this: http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/getting-cmyk-colors-from-inkscape-to-scribus)

Title: Re: Print colors
Post by: brynn on July 20, 2018, 07:50:56 PM

Quote from: Moini on July 20, 2018, 05:50:43 PM

There's another way, easier than the (missing) link above

Oops!  Fixed now  :-D

Title: Re: Print colors
Post by: Moini on July 21, 2018, 02:33:07 PM

Lol, and I had pasted the one from the google search result... fixed that, too :)