Before you begin designing a publication for commercial printing, you'll want to discuss with your commercial printing service whether to use process color (also known as CMYK (CMYK: A color model for commercial printing that produces a wide range of colors by mixing varying percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks.) color) or spot color (spot color: Premixed color matched to a standard color guide, such as PANTONE.). Publisher supports process-color and spot-color printing, and provides all the tools your commercial printing service needs to prepare your color publication for printing. After you make a decision about color, you can design your publication for the type of color printing you've chosen.

Choosing process-color or spot-color printing   In most cases, your decision to use process color, spot color, or a combination of spot and process color will be based on the printing issues that you discuss with someone from a commercial printing service. These issues include the following:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Commercial Printing Tools, and then click Color Printing.
2. Under Define all colors as, click Spot colors.

   Publisher converts all colors in your publication to spot-color inks, which are listed in the Inks tab. You can change, duplicate, or add new spot-color inks as desired.

   How?

   Change a spot-color ink

   When you change a spot-color ink, you replace it with another ink, which you can choose from the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM or the Microsoft Windows color palette, or define using the the RGB (RGB: A system that describes colors as a mixture of red (R), green (G), and blue (B). The color is defined as a set of three values (R,G,B). Using 0 (zero) percent of each color produces black; using 100 percent of all three colors produces white.), CMYK (CMYK: A color model for commercial printing that produces a wide range of colors by mixing varying percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks.), or HSL (HSL: A color model that defines a color by three values: Hue, the color itself; Saturation, the purity of the color; and Luminance, the amount of light that is either reflected or absorbed by the color.) color model.

   1. In the Inks tab, click the arrow next to the spot-color ink you want to change, and then click Change.
   2. In the Change Ink dialog box, select the spot-color ink you want, and then click OK.

   Duplicate a spot-color ink

   When you duplicate a spot-color ink, you create a new ink by altering the definition of an existing ink. Alternately, you can choose a new ink from the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM or the Windows color palette, or define it using the the RGB (RGB: A system that describes colors as a mixture of red (R), green (G), and blue (B). The color is defined as a set of three values (R,G,B). Using 0 (zero) percent of each color produces black; using 100 percent of all three colors produces white.), CMYK (CMYK: A color model for commercial printing that produces a wide range of colors by mixing varying percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks.), or HSL (HSL: A color model that defines a color by three values: Hue, the color itself; Saturation, the purity of the color; and Luminance, the amount of light that is either reflected or absorbed by the color.) color model.

   1. In the Inks tab, click the arrow next to the spot-color ink you want to duplicate, and then click Duplicate.
   2. In the New Ink dialog box, select the spot-color ink you want, and then click OK.

   Add a new spot-color ink

   When you add a new spot-color ink, you can choose a new ink from the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM or the Windows color palette, or define it using the the RGB (RGB: A system that describes colors as a mixture of red (R), green (G), and blue (B). The color is defined as a set of three values (R,G,B). Using 0 (zero) percent of each color produces black; using 100 percent of all three colors produces white.), CMYK (CMYK: A color model for commercial printing that produces a wide range of colors by mixing varying percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks.), or HSL (HSL: A color model that defines a color by three values: Hue, the color itself; Saturation, the purity of the color; and Luminance, the amount of light that is either reflected or absorbed by the color.) color model.

   1. In the Inks tab, click New Ink.
   2. In the New Ink dialog box, select the spot-color ink you want, and then click OK.

 Note   When you switch your publication to spot-color printing, any color schemes (color scheme: A predefined set of harmonized colors that you can apply to text and objects. Text and objects with an applied scheme color will change automatically when you switch to a new color scheme or modify the current color scheme.) you have will be lost.

1. On the Tools menu, point to Commercial Printing Tools, and then click Color Printing.
2. Under Define all colors as, click Process colors (CMYK).

   Publisher converts all colors in your publication to CMYK values, and then lists cyan, magenta, yellow, and black as the only inks in the Inks tab. Publisher lists all the colors in the Colors tab, showing their CMYK values.

 Note   Some colors that appear on your screen cannot be matched exactly to a CMYK color. After setting up for process-color printing, be sure to evaluate the publication for color changes. If a color does not match the color you want, you can change the color of individual objects in the publication.