Indesign and changing a spot colour to CMYK

Ok - I'm clueless. Anyone around here know a thing or two about InDesign CS3?

I'm filling in for someone at work who usually does the InDesigny stuff. Just got an email back from the publisher/printers and they said that "Pantone 300cvc has been used as a spot colour, this needs changing to CMYK". Anyone out there able to help a brotha out?

Much love,

wools

Double click the spot colour on the swatches pallette, where it says 'Pantone.. etc hold down until a lst of options appears, then scroll up to CMYK. Remember t change the field above that one from 'spot to CMYK too...

Update: Remember to change the field above that from 'spot' to 'process'...

Alright, so I doublt click on Pantone 300 CVC in the swatches panel (I'm in Windows-bleugh!) and it says "Color Type: Spot". I drop the menu down and I can choose either Spot or Process. "Color Mode" isn't selectable.

Soooo....what does I do?

Go process. It'll just change it to CMYK

Legend! Cheers dude. I love this forum sometimes.

No sweat! It's a great application, is Indesign. Just takes some getting used to... Good luck!

You can either deal wth this in pre-press by converting all spots to process, but the reason you can't change the colour is because it is being pulled in from a linked file (Illustrator or similar) and needs changing from within that file.

Use the preflight process (file -> preflight) to find which image has a spot in it and then edit that image directly... this will leave you with less unexpected results and happy printers.

Good call, JM. Didn't think of that.

@Jono - so this is File -> Preflight and then Links and Images? If so, it's saying "10 Links Found; 0 Modified, 0 Missing Images: 0 Embedded, 8 use RGB color space".

So, I know I need to change my images to CMYK. I'm doing that now. Anything else I need to be looking out for?

The Colors and Inks bit just says 4 Process Inks, 0 Spot Inks (thanks Lucifer) and CMS is ON.

Unless you will be proofing this yourself before submitting, I would recommend unchecking the "convert spots to process" (Lucifer) option and go and hunt that spot down manually.

The reason being that whenever you change colour spaces you should be aware of how that is affecting your print in every way, a generic spot to process conversion could leave you with a nasty dull colour that you don't want at all. (It's the same reason it's good practise to re-save images as CMYK, so you can see how transparencies and colour ranges are affected right there and then within the app... relying on automated processes is lazy and unpredictable, although I would go down that route if it's a cheap digital print job or some such.

Ladies and Gentlemen...I am back to bother y'all.

I've got spec that says:
Type size - 255mm (d) x 198mm (w)
Trim size - 280mm (d) x 216mm (w)
Bleed size - 288mm (d) x 222mm (w)

Now...I get what bleed and trim is. What the funk is type size?

Thankin' ya!

Mike.

I'm pretty sure it means "don't put important things like type outside of this area."

Yeah kinda like 'title safe' for us TV peeps.

Yeah kinda like 'title safe' for us TV peeps.

grrrr this is the most boring thing I have to do every day is try to explain to the SAME people OVER AND OVER that UK title safe isn't where their software thinks it is...

Jol and others...thank you!

So basically I'm working on an A4 document but should keep my 'shit' within a 255mm x 198mm space within the A4 page, right?

As ever...thank you muchly!

yeah - only the type should be inside the type area, images can bleed out!

If you're using images you may also need a publication spec as they tend to specify maximum UCR etc. (shift F6 in indesign - view ink)

Back once again...

OK, I've just come back to this thing I'm doing and realised that the above dimensions aren't actually A4. What I've done is set the trim size as the document size (instead of A4 297mm x 210mm), the bleed 3mm around this and then the type as a margin within the trim/document size. So that's 12.5mm margins on top and bottom and 9mm left and right. Does this sound about right?

Fanks!

Ladies and Gentlemen...I am back to bother y'all.

I've got spec that says:
Type size - 255mm (d) x 198mm (w)
Trim size - 280mm (d) x 216mm (w)
Bleed size - 288mm (d) x 222mm (w)

Now...I get what bleed and trim is. What the funk is type size?

Thankin' ya!

Mike.

You're making my brain hurt, Mr wools... Where did you get the A4 from if the trim size is 280x216? And why is the bleed 4mm (8mm/2) vertically but only 3mm (6mm/2) horizontally? Like I said, my brain hurts... ;]

Dude, my brain hurts too! It's too early for this ish.

Forget the A4...I'm working with eejits and that's what I was told and was working with at the start. As for the bleed - my bad. It is 3mm all round. The 288mm was a typo in my post.

So the 'trim' is the 'document' size then? And am I right about the type size/margins inside this?

My bwain hurty.

So the 'trim' is the 'document' size then? And am I right about the type size/margins inside this?

That sounds right, is it a single page document? Margins might not be symmetrical if it isn't... Just sayin'... ;]

Yup - just a single page. Don't think they could trust me with more than that!

I know what you're saying about the margins and the symmetry. I thought about that but it's just a single page so it's gotta be symmetrical, right? The fact that the margins aren't an even distance away from the page edge all the way around is bothering me also. Meh!

Cheers Joe.

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. I have a new InDesign-related problemo. Who fancies helping a brutha out again?

I've got to make a tri-fold brochure and was wondering how one would go about arranging the pages. Each panel is square-shaped (210mm by 210mm to be precise) with the panel that folds into the other two being 209mm by 210mm. How do I make sure the correct content is printed on both sides of the smaller page/panel?

Thank you please. :)

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