Free files - Make your own printed Pantone book

[Malkin]

I made a set of files to print / perfcut the current Pantone Solid Color book on our Rolands (using my own design for the actual pages)

I wanted a COMPLETE set of Pantone Solid Coated swatches, as printed by our equipment,
on the media of our choice, etc. The only vector PDF’s I could find online were out of date;
missing many colors, and the values were in the older “CMYK” definitions not the newer “LAB”
definitions. This does in fact make a difference, since when printed the same spot color won't match. (As far as Pantone is concerned this isn't an issue. One either is designing for offset using real Pantone ink formulas, or one should use the more limited Color Bridge to get CMYK values) For us, and others no doubt, we get the best choice and range of colors by just using the spot color fills and letting the RIP sort it out. And having our own "version" of the colors to pick from makes it easy.

Since no document met my requirements, I made my own.

If you intend to use it, read through my "Read This" PDF first in the zip folder
Hopefully someone else will find this helpful.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rEL8VbKvKZEPKKkLc30LD-4qtCcpT9nJ/view?usp=sharing
Zip file is about 28MB
EDIT: Oops, just noticed I duplicated some files, just ignore the extras!

Screencap of design also attached

 

[neutrinocv]

I'll see on how it comes out on our Epson SC-S40600. Thank you !

 

[Pewter0000]

Cool! I have generally found Versa's spot colour conversion not too bad, but occasionally we do get one or two that is like "????"

 

[gabagoo]

Thank you

 

[Red Ball]

Thank you.

 

[Malkin]

FYI - I haven't actually run this on our VG-540 yet since we're due to change to TR2 inks very soon (another reason I needed a new swatch book printed).
Although I have started running some on the old VP-540. I'll post a pic when done.

 

[Dtron10]

I'll see on how it comes out on our Epson SC-S40600. Thank you !

Please keep me updated on your Epson! I'm interested to hear about it...

 

[IsItFasst]

That's awesome! Coincidentally I just printed a giant Pantone chart yesterday since every so often there is a Pantone color that doesn't print correctly in Flexi (even though most are pretty good). Always nice to see how the color will actually print before the job begins. And these swatches would be a lot more manageable.

 

[Baz]

Thank You

 

[JimmyG]

Thanks much!

 

[FireSprint.com]

Wow. Can you share how you made this? Just one color swatch selection at a time or was there a more automated way to do it?

 

[Behrmon]

Nice work, great share!

 

[GB2]

A while ago I made a Pantone wall chart and I selected each color one by one and assigned it a PMS color in Illustrator so it matches whatever color assignments I make to designs in Illustrator:

 

[netsol]

yes, thank you!

and, like foresprint, curious how you made them

 

[Malkin]

Wow. Can you share how you made this? Just one color swatch selection at a time or was there a more automated way to do it?

Just 1 at a time... Maybe there is some more automated way, but I couldn't imagine what. Though I'm only at best an intermediate skill with Illustrator.
An hour here, an hour there. A few hours during "work from home" that I do 1 day a week. Once I had the templates set up I asked one of our employees to help out during her work from home time also. I didn't track it, but maybe there were 20 hours altogether.

I would type in the 7 color names on each page strip, then type the 1st number into the search box in the spot color library. Often by leaving out the last digit, it would display limited results that included all the other colors in the page, making it a little faster. Judicious use of groups, isolation mode, lock when done, etc.

I'm a bit of a control freak/perfectionist when it comes to designing "things for us", so when I considered all the benefits making our own, it just seemed to make sense. Now it should be relatively simple to make several sets with our most common vinyl/laminate combos. It will invariably be outdated again and I'll have to add more colors...

We had previously printed a chart found online somewhere, (a variant of this one by Rich Apollo: https://vector-conversions.com/vector/pantone_color_swatchbook.pdf ) but like I said it was old, and we had to manually cut it into strips to make it useful for comparing colors. Labor intensive (for every set needed), and had no page numbers, colors out of order, too much distracting white between every color, etc. That said, I'm thankful to Rich Apollo for what he freely released online in 2006, so I resolved to do the same.

 

[GB2]

I also made a wall chart for matching Gerber 220 vinyl, 3M 7125 vinyl and Pantone printed colors:

 

[ColorCrest]

Wow. Can you share how you made this? Just one color swatch selection at a time or was there a more automated way to do it?

If you consider the task in terms of records and values, treat each color as a record with its very few values attributed to each. Depending on the color library source, get its data into FileMaker (parse the data if you need to) and setup your desired print layout at the size you like with as many swatches as you like. Include any names and values alongside the swatch as you like. EDITED TO SAY: There are a few ways to do this; start with a Corel or Illustrator file, FileMaker native functions, custom functions from Brian Dunning's site, existing FileMaker files found on the web.

Just be aware, Pantone does not care for anyone printing the entire library on a single sheet and distributing it. Many years ago there was a Corel script to do so but Pantone prohibited its use. The script took about 30 seconds to run on machines of the day.

 

[JimmyG]

My problem with poster sized Pantone or Pantone to CMYK color bridge is that the printed blocks of color are not large enough to compare design color samples especially if i am recreating customer's existing logo or graphic ad without color specs given.
I need a full size poster chart in a large book type frame with multiple pages of larger color squares. (like carpet sample fan displays) LOL

 

[Bobby H]

I'm just going to throw this out there at risk of getting flamed. While I agree with pretty much everyone here that it is pretty convenient to have a print-able swatch library of Pantone spot colors, I seriously hope that no one is putting 100% faith in a digital file combined with their printer setup alone to produce an accurate "reference" of the desired spot colors.

I hate how much it costs to buy a spot color swatch book of Pantone colors. But there is ZERO substitute for having a valid, physical copy of an actual Pantone swatch book with inks that are still valid (they do fade over time). That's the real reference for whether the output from a printer is matching or at least getting in the ball park of looking like a specific Pantone spot color.

I do really like the idea of having a digital file with all the swatch colors set and ready to print. But I feel the best value of such a thing is to tell end users just how well their print setup is reproducing Pantone colors. The only way to know for sure is to have an up to date swatch book from Pantone.

 

[ColorCrest]

I seriously hope that no one is putting 100% faith in a digital file combined with their printer setup alone to produce an accurate "reference" of the desired spot colors.

Yes, of course. The swatch prints are always compared to a genuine Pantone sample book.