Convert Pantone process colour to normal CMYK colours

I am still working with CorelDraw8. Now I also want to produce figures in Adobe Illustrator. I e.g. found Oberons script to export directly to Adobe Illustrator (could not try it because it is for corel draw 10) – but in CorelDraw 8 you can also try to export to the ai-format manually – but in all different export settings (e.g. compatible to AI 2.0, 3.0 and so on) I had some problems e.g. with missing/wrong characters.
I made the experience so far that opening CorelDraw 8-files directly with Adobe Illustrator CS3 works very a lot of faster and the text so far is also complete.
My big problem: Adobe Illustrator converts spot colours in the cdr-file during the conversion to black. In corel I use for colours Pantone Process Colours (e.g. for yellow: Pantone S1-3) – and Illustrator is unfortunately recognizing this colour as a spot colour and converts it to black – so before opening the files in AI I need do convert the spot colours to process colours in Corel Draw. Manually you normally switch in the colour filling options from the Pantone model to the CMYK-model - and the colour model is changing to CMYK after clicking OK. The problem with the Pantone Process Colours is that if I switch to the CMYK-field the name of the colour (e.g. Pantone S1-3) appears still as the name of the colour (e.g. instead of undefined). So after clicking OK, the colour is still the Pantone Process colour (I suppose that corel is classifying the Pantone Process Colour model as a process colour model – but for AI it is a spot colour model). I used to deal with the LimitColourScript and changed my used palette from the Pantone Process colours to cmyk colours – with the same result, that after running the script the name of the colour is still the same (e.g. Pantone S1-6).
I made the experience, that after switching to the CMYK-field and the addition of e.g. one percent to black, then clicking ok, and going back to the colour window again and decrease the value with one percent again, the colour is fine – and a cmyk colour without any pantone name.

So how can I get rid of the Pantone process colours?

If you use the export field to AI it is possible to choose "convert spot colours to process colours". Is it possible to create a script that is converting the spot colours to process colours?

Because I have dozens of cdr-files (CorelDraw 8) and a big library which I want to convert also to AI any help is extremely appreciated. Especially if such a script/macro could convert a bigger number of files in one batch process!

Thank you for any help!

[Alex]

You could try to use Find and Replace wizard (Edit > Find & Replace> Replace Obejcts). Specify to replace "Color model or palette" then on the next page of the wizard specify to replace a color palette (pick "PANTONE process") and then replace it with CMYK colors...

Thanks for your answer, I am still trying, unfortunately without success.

It might be stange, but although I used nearly only the Pantone process colours in my graphics (with my own defined palette with about 30 Pantone process/spot-colours), Pantone process colours cannot be found with the search/replace function ("no object found").

I also tried searching for (all) colour model/colour palette and replaced it with the CMYK-model - but unfortunately I obviously cannot get rid of the Pantone colours - if I import this graphic to AI everything is still becoming black. Only if I replace it with RGB it works fine - but then my colour black is no longer K=100, but a mixture out of RGB - which is not good for printing.

Maybe your LimitColourScript could be a "life saver" - so I would just change the four colours slightly (e.g. increase the value for Y with one degree). I also tried this vice versa - after increasing with one degree, directly after that decreasing with one again - but corel seems to recognize the Pantone colour again and in AI the colour is black again. Maybe my user defined colour palette is stored with the file?

Could you imagine to make a script which can automize this, e.g. after creating a new replace palette automate your script for a bigger number of files?

Can it make sense to mail you a sample file?

[Harry]

Pantone process colours cannot be found with the search/replace function ("no object found").

I seem to remember that happening, though with a more recent version -- either 11 or X3.

I can't remember what I did to fix it but it might possibly have involved printing to device independent postscript (not sure if we had that in version 8?) using the print time "convert to CMYK" option and then reimporting it using PS Interpreted. Thus, the pantone colours would become CMYK in the postscript file and remain as CMYK on import.

The problem with export to eps and reimport is that this would double nearly all filled objects: while in corel a structure is filled with red this can easily be handled. In eps these objects would be separated in two - one object filled with red and the other one for the outline. Big problem if i want to change e.g. the object size.

Should I also try to change the corel version? Might it work e.g. in corel 10?

[Alex]

I would go directly to X3 or X4. There are quite some changes related to Pantone color and User Ink colors in those versions...

[shelbym]

I would also suggest jumping to X3 or X4, and you can download the demo from Corel's site to see if it fits you needs.

-Shelby

Thanks for your suggestions. I tried the demo-version of x4 - and searching for the Pantone Process colours was identically with corel 8 - "not found". That was quite frustrating. Also replacing all colours with CMYK failed, after importing that to Illustrator all colours have been black again. The same problem, cannot get rid of Pantone. Unfortunately forever Pantone! ;-)

The export filter to AI has been improved because all characters in the text have now been included. But the export works partially extremely slow and the file size increases, depending on the complexity, partially >60 MB (the original corel file was < 1 MB).

The corel-import filter of AI seems to be better, so I will try again the workflow with the LimitColourModel in Corel 8. If this works better it would be great if this could be automated (e.g. this script should process in a batch process several files in one step).

Thanks again for all help so far!

[Alex]

I don't know what you are talking about. I just did a very simple test. Created a few objects in CorelDRAW X4, filled them with Pantone colors, exported the document to AI and opened it in Ilustrator. Everything looks as it should. See attached screenshots and the CDR and AI file inside the attached ZIP.

Hallo Alex,

thank you indeed very much for your help.

I enclosed a sample corel file (colors are from the also enclosed Pantone-palette). If I try to export this file with the AI-filter in my demo-corel-x4 version, it takes longer than 2 minutes and the files size increases from 200 KB to over 50 MB. The resulting AI-file is not only extremely large and nearly unhandable, you can´t even manipulate e.g. the multiple color gradients in the file. I therefore assume the best way is to open the cdr-file directly in AI.

With the corel-sample-file the import in AI lasts only 5 seconds – and the resulting file looks really great, nearly identical with the cdr-file (unfortunately I was not able to upload the AI-file because also zipped it was 700 KB). How I prepard the cdr-file for the import in AI: I replaced all colours with the search/replace-function in corel with the RGB-model (for the fillings and the outlines) – and this worked fine. The only problem is that I now have a lot of new colours fields in AI. Additionally I have to replace in corel the RGB-color black (R31 G26 B23) in all fillings/outlines again with the CMYK-model (K=100) – otherwise black would not be printed sharply in CMYK. Can you develop for me this as a scripting solution because I might have to convert a lot of corel files?

My main problem is still to find the best way to replace the Pantone process colours with CMYK colours in corel – AI only recognizes CMYK, spot colours will be converted to black.

I have also tried your LimitColors-Skripts, but in Version 8 Pantone colors in the color gradients (e.g. from Pantone 192 25% to Pantone 192 100%) are not recogized/not replaced with colors from the also enclosed new CMYK-palette (sample file enclosed, if I open the file in AI some colours are still converted to black, in the new corel palette I added just 1% in M or Y so corel cannot allocate the new colours to the pantone process color palette again which happend without this).

The corel function "replace spot colors with process colours" in the AI-export-filter is a really good function – if this was available as a "stand-alone-function" - this would be tremendous. Do you see a possibility to use only this function?

Do you see a better possibility to get rid of that "damn" Pantone?

Thanks again for all your efforts.