Conquering Color

Adobe Indesign and Acrobat both feature output previewing and color conversion tools that can help you locate the different colors used in your document. These tools can help you manage your colors more effectively by comparing the colors you have used in your document with the colors you have chose to print. By checking your colors you can avoid incorrect separations, overprints, and eliminate costs related to files that require color corrections.

Indesign
1. First in InDesign, select Window > Output > Separations Preview.
2. In the drop-down menu select "separations." Here you will see all CMYK and spot colors used in your document.
3. You can turn colors on and off by checking the color boxes.
4. In separations preview, open the ink manager. Check the "all spots to process" box to convert all spot colors in the document to four color process. You can also convert a spot color in your document to a process color or a different spot color by selecting the color in the ink manager and using the "ink alias" tool.

Acrobat
1. In Acrobat, before beginning the output preview, we suggest that you make a duplicate PDF to protect your original work. Select Advanced > Print Production > Output Preview to begin previewing.
2. Just as you did in InDesign, select "separations" to see the colors used in your document.
3. To check for images that will print in rich black or overprint, select "color warnings."

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