Re-Spot (Update Spot Colors)

Old artwork often carries old or wrong Pantone formulas. Re-Spot finds every spot colour swatch whose name is in a colour book and updates it to the book's formula, in one click. Use Illustrator's own books, or your own library of formulas tuned for your printer.

See it in the shop · Version 1.1.8 · Needs PowerScripts 3.8.42 or later

Open the PowerScripts panel (Window > Extensions > PowerScripts) and choose Re-Spot (Update Spot Colors) from the Color Tools scripts.

1. Open the document.
2. Choose the colour book, for example PANTONE+ Solid Coated.
3. Press Repair Swatches.

The panel tells you how many spot colours were updated, and lists any spot colours that aren't in the book.

• Update SPOT colors by name: update every spot colour whose name matches a colour in the book. Upper and lower case don't matter. The artwork using that spot colour changes with it.
• Update Process colors by name (will not change document colors): also update process swatches with a book colour's name, for example a CMYK swatch called “PANTONE 186 C”. This changes the swatch only: artwork already painted with the old colour keeps it. If the book colour is a Lab colour, the swatch becomes a spot colour.
• Colour book: the book to take the formulas from. The list shows Illustrator's colour books (and the folders inside them). Type in the search box to check a colour is in the book.
• Import button (next to the book list): open your own colour book (an .acb or .ase file). Use it for books Illustrator no longer includes, such as PANTONE, or for a swatch library of your own formulas.
• Repair Swatches: does it. On a document with lots of spot colours a Stop button shows. Stopping keeps the colours already updated, and Undo puts them back.

1. Make a swatch library of the spot colours as you've tuned them for your printer, with the same names as the colour book (for example “PANTONE 186 C”), and save it as an .ase file (Swatches panel menu > Save Swatch Library as ASE).
2. In Re-Spot, use the import button to open that file.
3. Press Repair Swatches on each job before printing: every matching spot colour now uses your formula.

1. Open the file and press Repair Swatches with the right book chosen.
2. “All Spot Colors up to date” means the file already had the book's formulas.
3. Names listed under “Not in the colour book” are spot colours with a different or misspelt name: check them by hand, or fix them with Color Replacer.

• Choose the book that matches how the job prints (coated or uncoated): the same name has different formulas in each.
• Run it as part of your pre-press check, before PDF Export.

• Only the name is matched. A spot colour renamed by hand (for example “Logo Red”) isn't updated.
• Spot colours that already match the book within rounding aren't counted as updated.
• Illustrator's built-in swatches in square brackets, such as [Registration], are left alone.

• 1.1.8
  • New: open your own colour books (.acb or .ase) with the import button, for books Illustrator no longer includes such as PANTONE.
  • New: a long update can be stopped.
  • Fixed: spot colours that already match the colour book are no longer counted as updated.
  • Improved: faster in documents with many swatches, and general bug fixes and reliability.
• 1.1.5: Updated for PowerScripts 3.8.32.
• 1.1.4: Updated for the new version of PowerScripts.
• Older changes: PowerScripts Release Notes