Apply color

• For a path or frame, use the Selection tool  or the Direct Selection tool , as necessary.

• For a grayscale or monochrome (1‑bit) image, click the Content Grabber or use the Direct Selection tool. You can apply only two colors to a grayscale or monochrome image.

• For text characters, use the Type tool  to change the text color of a single word or the entire text within a frame.

In the Toolbox or in the Color or Swatches panel, select the Formatting Affects Text or Formatting Affects Container to determine if color is applied to the text or the text frame.

• Select a color, tint, or gradient using the Swatches or Gradient panel.

• Select a color, tint, or gradient from the Fill or Stroke menu in the Control panel.

• Double-click either the Fill or Stroke box in the Toolbox or the Color panel to open the Color Picker. Select the desired color, and click OK.

• Click or drag inside the color field. Cross-hairs indicate the color’s position in the color field.

• Drag the color slider triangles along the color spectrum or click inside the color spectrum.

• Enter values in any of the text boxes.

To save the color as a swatch, click Add CMYK Swatch, Add HSB Swatch, Add RGB Swatch, or Add Lab Swatch. InDesign adds the color to the Swatches panel, using the color values as its name.

• Click the Color button  to apply the last selected solid color in the Swatches or Color panel.

• Click the Gradient button  to apply the last selected gradient in the Swatches or Gradient panel.

• Click the None button  to remove the object’s fill or stroke.

Using the Selection tool , select a text or object frame; or using the Text tool , select a range of text.

If the Swatches panel is not open, choose Window > Color > Swatches.

In the Swatches panel, select the Fill box or the Stroke box.

Do one of the following:

• To apply color to selected text, click the Text button .

• To apply color to a selected object or text container (such as a frame or a table), click the Object button .

Click a color or gradient swatch. The selected color or gradient is applied to any selected text or object, and it appears in the Color panel and in the Fill box or Stroke box in the Toolbox.

• Adjust the Tint slider, which appears by default if the object uses a swatch from the Swatches panel.

• Choose a Lab, CMYK, HSB, or RGB color model in the Color panel menu, and use the sliders to change the color values. You can also enter numeric values in the text boxes next to the color sliders.

• Position the pointer over the color bar, and click.

• Double-click the Fill or Stroke box, and select a color from the Color Picker. Then click OK.

• In the Color panel, Shift-click the color bar at the bottom of the panel.

• In the New Color Swatch or Swatch Options dialog box, Shift-click the color box.

• In the New Gradient or Gradient Options dialog box, select a gradient stop, make sure that RGB, LAB, HSB, or CMYK is selected in the Stop Color menu, and then Shift-click the color box.

Click the Color Theme tool on the Tools panel. You can use the shortcut I to toggle between the Color Theme tool and the Eyedropper tool.

Click any part of the layout to pick a color. You can also leverage colors from any artwork placed in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other file.

Color is retained once selected using the theme tool. After picking up colors, if you switch tool to perform some other operation, say drawing any object, and then reselect the Color Theme tool, the theme picked up earlier would be retained. Unless you press the ESC key to close the panel, the theme picked up is retained for reuse. On pressing the ESC key, everything gets cleared.

Roll your mouse to observe areas marked automatically by InDesign where you can create a color theme from. Click a section and InDesign creates a color theme.

A color theme is made of five different colors. Click the flyout menu to view the other color choices generated.

A color theme is made of five different colors. Click the flyout menu (A from the image), to see the other theme choices generated for the same color theme, such as Colorful, Bright, Deep, and Muted.

If you do not like the color theme generated, press the Esc key and try again, or press the Alt key to temporarily switch to Pick mode to collect new theme.

Shift+Click to pick a single (precise) color as the base color for the theme. Color themes are generated based on Adobe Color rules: Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, Shades.

To apply the colors, you can select a single color on the Color Theme tool. Roll over the mouse to the page item. The Eyedropper appears half-full, click to change the fill or stroke.

When you roll over the mouse over text, the eyedropper changes to text. You can apply a color generated from the Color Theme tool on text.

Double-click the Color Theme tool. Colors picked and added to swatches honor document intent and automatically converts to appropriate color space before being added to swatches or dropped on other objects. Three options are provided to choose from:

1. Convert as per document Intent.
2. Convert to CMYK.
3. Convert to RGB.

Click B to add these colors to the Swatches panel. The color theme gets added to the Swatches panel as a folder.

To add a specific color to the Swatches panel, press Alt and click “Add the current color theme to swatches” button.

Click this button, the selected theme on the panel is saved to the current CC Library in the CC Libraries panel.

You can apply color values using hexadecimal RGB code in Color picker, New Swatch, and Edit swatch workflow. You can apply color values using hexadecimal RGB code, as well. There are three ways in which you can apply a hex color value:

• Using the Color Picker in a New Swatch: From the Swatch panel, click to expand the flyout menu and select New Color Swatch. In the New Color Swatch dialog, select RGB from the Color Mode.
  Click the screengrabber, hold down the mouse button, and click anywhere on the screen to view the hex color value from any source. Click Add to add the color swatch.

• Edit Swatch: You can also edit a swatch and change its hex value. Double-click a swatch, from the Color Mode drop-down, select RGB.
• Color Proxy: Double-click the color proxy in the Tools panel. You can pick the hex value from here.
  

Select one or more objects that have the fill and stroke attributes you want to change.

Select the Eyedropper tool .

Click any object that has the fill and stroke attributes you want to sample. A loaded eyedropper appears , and the selected objects are automatically updated with the fill and stroke attributes of the object you clicked.

To change other objects to the same attributes, click the objects with the loaded eyedropper. If an object is stroked and not filled, be sure to click the object’s outline.

Press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while the Eyedropper tool  is loaded. The Eyedropper tool reverses direction, and appears empty , to indicate that it’s ready to pick up new attributes.

Without releasing the Alt or Option key, click an object containing the attributes that you want to copy, and then release the Alt or Option key so that you can drop the new attributes on another object.

In the Toolbox, double-click the Eyedropper tool .

Select the attributes in the Fill Settings and Stroke Settings sections that you want to copy with the Eyedropper tool, and then click OK.

To create a color group, click the Color Group icon on the Swatches panel. Alternatively, you can also create a color group from the flyout and context menu.

• Enter the name of the color group.
• Select the option to create the color group scheme:
  • Selected Swatches:  Select this option, if you want to move the swatches to a color group at the time of creation. Hold Ctrl (Win) or Option (Mac) to select multiple color swatches before selecting the New Color Group option. If no swatches are selected, an empty color group is created.
    
  • Selected Page Items(s):  The swatches of the selected page items or artwork are added to the created color group. This option is selected by default when an artwork is selected.
    

You can drag-and-drop multiple swatches from the root as well as from other color groups into the created color group.

Right-click on a color swatch to explore other options. You can switch to a Color Group view and work extensively with color groups. Click the filter icon at the bottom of the panel and select Show Color Groups. This enables you to work with color groups extensively. Root swatches and gradients are not visible in this view.

Select page item(s) in the document.

From the Flyout or Context menu, select New Color Group.

Select Selected Page Item(s) in the New Color group dialog box. In case more than one swatches are selected in the swatches panel, then the default selection is Selected Swatches.

Color groups work in all list views (name, small name) as well as grid views (small swatch, large swatch). All the operations like creation, dragging swatches, color groups can be performed across all the different views inside the swatches panel.

Select Load Swatches from the Swatches panel menu.

Select the saved .ase file. Click Open.

Select the color group or swatch.

From the flyout menu, select Save Swatches.

Enter the name of the .ase file. Click Save.

Select Window > Color.

In the Browse window, select a theme.

You can do any of the following to export the theme to InDesign:

• Click the arrow next to a theme and select Add to Swatches Panel.                       

• Click the Add selected theme icon to import the theme to the Swatches panel.
  

You can also go to the Create tab in Color, select a rule from Select Rule, and click the Add this theme to swatches icon.