Quick Illustrator Question about Spot Colours

[Blue Velvet]

Illustrator is definitely my weakest app...

I have a greyscale logo, created in Illustrator. Shapes within it are solid tints of grey 20%, 50% etc.

I need to quickly create 5 variants of it as single spot colour versions. However, selecting the whole logo and choosing a Pantone colour converts all shapes to 100% rather than retaining the tint percentages.

Any quick way to do this or do I need to do each one manually? Am I missing some trick?

Thanks
BV

 

[iMeowbot]

It might be less hassle to first change all the fills to black, then change the opacity of the fills. That would be preserved across the color changes.

 

[iMeowbot]

This may or may not be useful, I found this plugin that claims to automate the job. It says it's for CS, but i couldn't test it because CS2 doesn't see it.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Oh, thanks for the plugin.

I'll try it later today or over the weekend (slippage already on work in progress )

Prefer to not use transparency on the EPSs as some of the older RIPs that a few of our display suppliers use get a bit confused. Was just looking for a quick solution but if I have to do them manually I will. Bleh.

 

[iMeowbot]

Prefer to not use transparency on the EPSs as some of the older RIPs that a few of our display suppliers use get a bit confused. Was just looking for a quick solution but if I have to do them manually I will. Bleh.

Isn't this fun? That plugin was apparently written to deal with exactly the opposite problem. Somebody really ought to come up with standards for these things

 

[Snark]

Illustrator is definitely my weakest app...

I have a greyscale logo, created in Illustrator. Shapes within it are solid tints of grey 20%, 50% etc.

I need to quickly create 5 variants of it as single spot colour versions. However, selecting the whole logo and choosing a Pantone colour converts all shapes to 100% rather than retaining the tint percentages.

Any quick way to do this or do I need to do each one manually? Am I missing some trick?

Thanks
BV

You got me all curious so I had to play.

If I'm understanding the problem correctly, I think I found an "oh well, next time" solution.

I specified the black I was using as a spot color, then the shapes in various tints of that black spot color maintained their tints when I did a 'select all' and assigned the group a new spot color.

Snark

 

[Blue Velvet]

You got me all curious so I had to play.

If I'm understanding the problem correctly, I think I found an "oh well, next time" solution.

I specified the black I was using as a spot color, then the shapes in various tints of that black spot color maintained their tints when I did a 'select all' and assigned the group a new spot color.

Snark

Good one. That sounds like a plan. I'll try this tonight after I've had a pint.