[yandytex] Usage of Spot colours

[Ganz, Frank, Springer US]

Dear Ragu,

This is a very interesting question. You only have process color
available to produce proofs for your customer. So, any spot color
definition would put the CMYK model to use at first. If you do not care
about color representation on proofs, and you do not use process colors
in your document elsewhere, you could conceivably use any of the base
colors of the CMYK model. Each base color could represent a different
spot color, which would give you a total of four. You could instruct the
printer accordingly.

However, I find that this is a legitimate reason to start discussions
with the printer about how they want to receive a PDF file that makes
use of spot color. I wouldn't assume that this is standardized.

Other resources are:

The LaTeX Graphics Companion 

http://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Graphics-Companion-Illustrating-Postscript/d
p/0201854694/sr=8-1/qid=1159543056/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6549723-0282408?ie=U
TF8&s=books 

that may have something on it. 

Googling "spot color in LaTeX" got me to a PDF page on TUG (for pdftex):

http://www.tug.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/spotcolor/readme.pdf
#search=%22spot%20color%20in%20LaTeX%22

The spotcolor package (for use with pdflatex, not Y&YTeX) is available
here:

http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/spotcolor/

But, quite frankly, the author of the package says of himself that he
does not understand the PDF file format. This would scare me a little.

Another issue involves the use of pdf[la]tex. A PDF file from it may be
too risky to send off to a commercial printer. If you want to minimize
risk in erroneous output, you best stay within the confines of standard
products that find use in the print industry, which means, PDF from
Adobe products. Nobody knows the bugs that may be exploited when a PDF
file from an unknown product (from the perspective of a commercial
printer) hits any of their equipment. There is a better chance Adobe's
bugs are known and the printer knows how to deal with them.

I'm afraid not much of an answer.

Thanks,
Frank

 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: yandytex-bounces at tug.org 
>[mailto:yandytex-bounces at tug.org] On Behalf Of Ragu
>Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 4:49 AM
>To: yandytex at tug.org
>Subject: [yandytex] Usage of Spot colours
>
>Dear All,
>
>Do i get any help in using SPOT colors through LaTeX.
>
>Regards
>Ragu
>--
>http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/yandytex
>