PagePlus

Managing publication palettes

Each PagePlus publication has a particular set of colors, known as a palette, which appear as a set of gallery swatches in the Swatches tab. PagePlus ships with a range of palettes, stored separately as files with the .plt file extension (e.g., RGB.plt). New paper and web publications initially use the standard RGB palette (you can change the default palette if you wish).

Any new colors you apply to an object will automatically be added to the Swatches tab’s Publication palette, which also hosts other colors previously used in the current publication along with a selection of commonly used colors (e.g., Red, Green, Blue, etc.).

You can also modify the publication palette by adding custom colors via a dialog or from any standard or “themed” palette. The  Publication palette is always saved along with the PagePlus project and loaded when the project is opened.

A publication can also include colors that aren’t part of the Publication palette, and hence don’t appear in the Swatches tab. For example, you might apply a gallery color to an object and then modify its shade/tint value, creating a unique color. Any such colors are of course saved in the publication, but they remain separate from the palette itself unless you explicitly add them once applied to an object.

PagePlus lets you quickly load standard RGB, CMYK or “themed” palettes as well as save and load custom palettes for use in other publications.

Sometimes (as in professional printing), where CMYK colors should be used, you need to be careful to stay within a particular set of palette colors (and if you’re not using color matching, enable color management to optimize color accuracy). For casual desktop output, you can relax a bit—but in general, it’s a good idea to keep track of the colors you use in a publication, and the palette helps you do just that.

To add a custom color to the Publication palette automatically:

•  With the Color tab selected, optionally choose a color mode from the Color mode drop-down list.

• Pick a color from the displayed color spectrum (or use color sliders).
  – or -

• Click the  Color Picker on the Color tab, then click the “picker” cursor over a color on your computer screen (hold down the mouse button to get a zoomed-in view of pixel colors).

• Don’t color pick with an object selected, otherwise you’ll recolor the object with the picked up color.

• You can also add, edit, or delete standard or “themed” palette colors in the Publication palette by right-clicking on a palette swatch then selecting the appropriate option.

• If you don’t want to add colors automatically, uncheck Automatically Add to Publication palette on the Color tab’s  Tab Menu button.

To add an object’s solid fill color to the Publication palette:

• Right-click the object and choose Format>Add Fill to Studio. The color is added to the Publication palette of the Swatches tab directly.
  – or -
  Select the object and choose Add Fill to Studio from the Format menu.

To edit a specific palette color in the Publication palette:

1. Right-click a sample in the Publication palette of the Swatches tab and choose Edit.

2. Choose a different color from the color spectrum in the Color Selector dialog.

3. Click the OK button. The color is updated in the Publication palette.

To remove a color from the Publication palette:

• Right-click on the color and choose Delete. Alternatively, use the Palette Manager.

To load a named palette:

1. In the Swatches tab, click the down arrow on the  Palette button.

2. From the resulting drop-down menu, select a standard (e.g., standard CMYK or RGB) or “themed” palette.

The loaded palette’s colors appear as swatches in the Swatches tab, replacing the swatches previously visible. Note that changing the palette has no effect on colors already defined for particular objects in your publication.

Using the Palette Manager and Color Selector

The Palette Manager and Color Selector are complementary dialogs.

• The Palette Manager manages the Publication palette, permitting palette colors to be added, modified or removed. It also lets you load and save named Publication palettes.

• The Color Selector lets you choose a color to apply or mix custom colors. Its Models tab displays the color space of several established color models: RGB (red, green blue), HSL (hue, saturation, luminosity), CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), and PANTONE® Colors. Its Publication palette tab lets you modify and view the set of colors associated with the Publication palette.

To display the Palette Manager:

• Choose Palette Manager… from the Tools menu.

To add a PANTONE® color to the publication’s palette:

• Display the Palette Manager, select New, then in the Model list on the Models tab choose PANTONE® Colors.

PANTONE refers to Pantone, Inc.’s check-standard trademark for color reproduction and color reproduction materials. For details, see Color matching with PANTONE® colors.

• The loaded palette’s colors appear as swatches in the Swatches tab, as well as in the Color Selector and Palette Manager, replacing the
  swatches previously visible.

If you’ve added new colors to the palette and will want to use them in other publications, you can save the palette.

To save the Publication palette:

• In the Palette Manager, click Save To File and specify a name for the palette.

 If the palette is saved to the dialog’s default folder, the saved palette’s name will appear in the drop-down menu of the Palette button (Swatches tab).

• Normally, an altered Publication palette is just saved locally, along with the publication’s current defaults. To save it globally, so it will be loaded whenever you create a new publication, you can use the Save Defaults command.

Managing publication palettes