I searched the forum and found a couple of posts about it but I'm not completely sure I understand completely.

I have a designed made and sent to my screen printer for shirts but they said they needed spot colors. Is that even possible with Inkscape or do I need to use another program? The forum posts I found were quite dated and I was not sure if Inkscape had added that ability since the post were made.

I have the colors already in layers but I have 0 knowledge when it comes to this stuff.

The printer uses AI and was able to open my .svg file with no issue but couldn't separate the colors to print the film for his screens.

depending on how flexible your printer is he or she could probably use one file per color and print from that. just ask them what registration marks they need and put them in the file. Working on a copy of the file, select everything that is the same spot color, and the registration marks, and delete everything else. make everything remaining black but save as filename_nameofspotcolor. To make it even easier insert a text object outside the image area with the name of the spot color. Do this process for each spot color.

I had never heard of "spot color" so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_color As far as I understand that, it should be easily possible with Inkscape.

But you could also ask the printer to clarify what they mean. From my experience reading forum messages (and not with any actual printers or print shops) it seems that printers sometimes seem to have their own unique kind of language, which is not always precise. For exampe, by that wikipedia definition, spot color refers to the ink on the fabric. But they seem to have stretched it to refer to the fill color in Inkscape.

Anyway, feel free to share your SVG file with us, if you'd like us to look for problems you might have missed....or just to confirm that everything is set up correctly.

Inkscape does not support spot colors. If the above approach from druban is not an option, import the SVG into Scribus, and use Scribus' functionality for spot colors, then export to pdf from there.

Oohh, I didn't read far enough down the article. I see that spot color also means CMYK, which Inkscape does not support. Sorry for the misinfo.

Spot color does not mean CMYK. It means spot color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_color

Moini wrote:Inkscape does not support spot colors. If the above approach from druban is not an option, import the SVG into Scribus, and use Scribus' functionality for spot colors, then export to pdf from there.

I was hoping for a way to do it without having to download scribus but it looks like its my only option. Thanks for the help!

Yes, currently, that's how it is. This might change in the future, but we would need help with it, possibly we'd need to pay someone to implement proper color management and pdf export - and there's the need to have someone who can organize it.

lostinvectographics wrote:

Moini wrote:Inkscape does not support spot colors. If the above approach from druban is not an option, import the SVG into Scribus, and use Scribus' functionality for spot colors, then export to pdf from there.

I was hoping for a way to do it without having to download scribus but it looks like its my only option. Thanks for the help!

SVG was originally designed with a bias toward web use, not print, like PNG.
Many custom printers cheerfully accept supplementary files for spot color definitions made as I described, but if you want to have it all in a single file you will have to use another program. A good rule of thumb: if your spot color is flat (e.g. metallic or varnish) you can use a supplementary file, but if it needs to be half toned you should use one file for all because that is just too much manual work for mr or ms printer

Hi.

If you use the Pantone Palette I made you have the spot color names available. See this thread: http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=14045

Would be simple to make a pyhon script to extract all the colors used in the SVG file and either save to a separate text file for the "Printer" to use or the pantone spot color info can be stored in the SVG file itself if this is easier for the "Printer".

** Printer - (The service company to print your design - not the office machine making an image on paper)

For the record, if it appears that a member doesn't understand something, I think it would be more constructive if you used some gentle guidance, rather than blunt negativity and sarcasm. Our community is known as a friendly one and I'd appreciate others trying to keep it that way, as I do.

Ragnar, that is an interesting idea, to store the spot info in the SVG itself. How would one manage to keep it separate from the RGB when converting to CMYK for separation? Does xml have a setting to suppress a color without hiding the object?

Hi

Brynn:

For the record, if it appears that a member doesn't understand something, I think it would be more constructive if you used some gentle guidance, rather than blunt negativity and sarcasm. Our community is known as a friendly one and I'd appreciate others trying to keep it that way, as I do.

Sorry if my post came across as not being polite, it was not my intension. Sorry about that!

No, of course not you Ragnar. I'm sure those who are responsible know who they are.

Just for everyone's general information, I'm done with this forum. I can no longer participate in a community where this type of behavior is allowed, and not just with impunity, but with admiration. I've done everything I could do to urge more professional behavior here. And I had hoped we had put this kind of behavior behind us. But without support from....well, anyone, it's obviously been a wasted effort. Best wishes for the future.