[CREATE] PDF and Pantone

[Ricardo Lafuente]

Hi Jakub,

On 10/04/2012 08:13 AM, Jakub Jankiewicz wrote:
> I read about Pantone on Wikipedia and it's say that Free Software don't
> support it, is there a hack that will allow to prepare pdf with pantone
> inside?

I'm not a developer but had some experience with doing professional 
print stuff with F/LOSS.

 From what I grok of the subject, Pantone values in documents are just 
indications for the printer, and are used as a visual approximation of 
the final printed colour. This visual approximation will most surely not 
be accurate (if a screen isn't properly calibrated) or even possible 
(think metallic tones). This is why you have to check the colour 
manufacturer's swatch books to see what it will look like in print.

And since the Pantone value is just a reference, you can always tell the 
printer to change a certain colour, since that's done physically and not 
through software (at Portuguese printers at least). Roughly simplifying 
the issue, using the Pantone value in your document corresponds to 
including a text file specifying the type of paper you want it printed 
in -- the printer can follow these instructions, but it's not really 
tied to your document.

So the only thing necessary for using Pantone or any other colour 
manufacturer's reference values is for your software tool to support 
spot colours. Scribus does.

And even if it doesn't fully support spot colours (like Inkscape, IIRC), 
one can simply create separate layers, one for each spot colour that 
you're using. Then just tell the printer which is which.

Finally, if you're missing the on-screen Pantone previews, you should 
definitely check out Swatchbooker.

Feel free to correct me if anything I said isn't right!

:r