It looks as if custom spot colours created in X6.3 are not being correctly named in exported EPS or when pubishing to PDF.
Example:
Next I create a document with one object, and I assign 100% NondescriptBrown outline to it. Good so far -- it shows correctly as 100% NondescriptBrown on the status line.
Export to EPS without a preview image -- making sure convert spot colours is off.
Open the EPS file in a text editor and look at the line: %%DocumentCustomColors: (C10 M20 Y30 K40)
That's right, the export has named the colour C10 M20 Y30 Y40 and searching confirms that the correct name NondescriptBrown does not appear anywhere in the EPS.
Looking at the palette's XML file I see:
So, it seems that X6.3 should be looking up the proper name in colors>page>color.name and using that for the export, but is instead exporting with the internal colorspaces>cs.name which is a purely arbitrary name that is not for external use.
I can fix the problem by manually editing the XML file by changing colorspaces>cs.name and colors.page.cs both to NondescriptBrown, so that the internal name is already the same as the correct export name, but clearly that should not be necessary -- and if CorelDraw can display the correct name on screen in the status line, it ought to be able to export it correctly too.
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Exactly the same applies when publishing to PDF, but is harder to prove, because its compression renders the file unreadable in a text editor.
Thanks Harry, I will make sure this is addressed in forthcoming update 4. The spot color definition ( named "colorspace" in XML, rather confusingly) still may be different than the spot color name, we would like to keep that as there are likely workflows relying on it. But we will use real spot color name when outputting to formats that use spot color name as the only ink identifier (PS/EPS/PDF).
Such an amazing disappointment. I've been struggling for hours on end trying to get variable data printing to work with Roland Versaworks which requires custom named spot colors. I have to say that few things are more frustrating than finding out that you were doing everything right and that it was, in fact, the program you just paid $500 for that isn't working correctly. I need this fix yesterday!
The X6.4 fix is probably due very soon now, but you can fix it yesterday (well, today perhaps) if you wish.
You need to find the custom palette where your colours are saved, and edit it. You will probably find it in C:\Users\your user name\Documents\My Palettes. It will be an XML file with the same name that you gave when creating the palette.
Open it in a text editor (notepad will do) and you should see a section like the above, one for each custom spot colour.
You need to exactly copy the name ("NondescriptBrown" in the example, on the line after page) to replace the CMYK values in cs-name under colorspaces and the second colour cs under page.
Here's an example of an edited custom spot palette, which generated a good PDF a few weeks ago:
<?xml version="1.0"?><palette guid="8c2df10e-0a1f-46aa-8cef-829c92cb78d5" name="Pixacut"><colorspaces> <cs name="CutContour" fixedID="1" version="1500"> <color cs="CMYK" tints="0,1,0,0"/> </cs></colorspaces><colors><page><color cs="CutContour" name="CutContour" tints="1"/></page></colors></palette>
The format has messed up in pasting it here, but the values in bold are those I needed to change by copying the name in red which was already correct.
Perfect! Thanks for the workaround, Harry!