Refine colors for converted Office files

A spreadsheet "Eventplan" has three tables on two sheets, some images and a diagram with saturated colors. This spreadsheet document is converted by pdfToolbox to PDF and the colors are perfectly prepared for the printing process: Saturated RGB colors are converted into saturated CMYK colors and RGB-Black is converted into Black.

Start pdfToolbox and open "Eventplan.ods" from the file system

The spreadsheet is converted into a PDF file with two pages

The first page contains some images, a table and a diagram.

Go to second page

The second page contains one table that controls the diagram on the first page.

Go to third page

The size of the pages is adjusted by pdfToolbox depending on the settings of the respective page in OpenOffice.

In order to analyze the result, open the Profiles window from the pdfToolbox menu

You see all profiles that are available

Select a profile that lets you analyze the PDF

The profile "List page objects, grouped by type of object" is useful to create an overview of all objects in a PDF file. Select this profile by entering "group" into the search field.

Analyze the PDF file by clicking the "Analyze" button

All page objects are listed

All page objects are listed in three groups.

Open the "Vector objects (filled)" group in order to analyze the diagram

Open the "Vector objects (filled)" entry.

Use the Snap view and analyze the colors in the diagram on the first page

Open the Snap view by clicking the button "Show in Snap". Select the first entry from the list: "Page 1 RGB (1.0/0.0/0.0) overprint off". The red patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The RGB values for the red entry are 1 in the red channel and 0 in the green and blue channels. It would be good if this patch would be converted to 100 Magenta and 100 Yellow in order to be as saturated as possible in the CMYK color space. All other CMYK channels should be 0.

Select the yellow patch from the diagram

Select the second entry from the list: "Page 1 RGB (1.0/1.0/0.0) overprint off". The yellow patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The RGB values for the yellow entry are 1 in the red and green channel and 0 in the blue channel. It would be good if this patch would be converted to 100 Yellow in order to be as saturated as possible in the CMYK color space. All other CMYK channels should be 0.

Select the gray patch from the diagram

Select the fifth entry from the list: "Page 1 RGB (0.49/0.49/0.49) overprint off". The gray patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The RGB values for the yellow entry are 0.49 in the three RGB channels. It would be good if this patch would be converted to a gray CMYK patch without using the CMY channels.

Open the pdfToolbox Switchboard in order to convert the PDF file to CMYK

Select "Colors".

Use the special color conversion method for Office files

Select "Office PDF to CMYK".

A pop up with a list of available printing destinations appears

Select a printing destination

Select any of the printing destinations, e.g. "Commercial Printing on Coated Paper (ISO)" and start the conversion by clicking on "Execute".

Conversion is done

Go back to the Profiles window

Go back to the Profiles window and use the same profile "List page objects, grouped by type of object" as before in order to analyze the result.

Objects in the result file are listed

Open the "Vector objects (filled)" entry

Select the red patch from the diagram

Open the Snap view by clicking the button "Show in Snap". Select the first entry from the list: "Page 1 CMYK (0.0/1.0/1.0/0.0) overprint off". The red patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The red patch has been converted to 100 Magenta and 100 Yellow as requested and appears as a saturated as possible red in the CMYK color space. All other CMYK channels are 0.

Select the yellow patch from the diagram

Select the second entry from the list: "Page 1 CMYK (0.0/0.0/1.0/0.0) overprint off". The yellow patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The yellow patch has been converted to 100 Yellow as requested and appears as a saturated as possible yellow in the CMYK color space. All other CMYK channels are 0.

Select the gray patch from the diagram

Select the fifth entry from the list: "Page 1 Black (0.0) overprint on". The gray patch from the diagram appears in the Snap view. The gray patch has accordingly been converted. Note that in addition, the sixth patch that is black has been set to overprint, because in the printing color space this is required in order to let a black object overprint other objects. If a black object is not set to overprint, there may be white lines around it when being printed.

videos

Playlist

Did you like the video? Then you might want to have a look at related videos in the following playlist!

Back to overview