In this article, you will learn
- which prerequisites must be met for this Fixup, and
- how to apply this Fixup.
1. Introduction
The $PRODUCT_NAME_WORKFLOW application provides the Duplicate Spot Color Separation Fixup. The purpose of this Fixup is to duplicate an existing Spot Color separation and assign the desired Spot Color to the duplicate, or rename the Spot Color.
2. General
The Duplicate Spot Color Separation Fixup can be used to duplicate an existing Spot Color separation and fill it with another Spot Color defined systemwide and output as a separation. For example, a white separation can be duplicated and created as a Varnish or Primer separation of the same size.
You can find the Fixup on the Data Preparation tab of an Article, Order or Production Job by:
- entering the name of the Fixup in the Filter area,
- enabling the PageBox option in the Category area,
- enabling the Change option in the Action area,
- enabling the MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox, or Duplicate option in the Property area.
3. Description
This Fixup duplicates a selected separation and creates it in the desired Spot Color. The Spot Color separation is duplicated along with all its tonal gradations.
3.1. Prerequisites and Functionality
For the Fixup to work as intended, the following requirement must be met:
- The file already contains a Spot Color separation.
Figure 1: The dialog of the Duplicate Spot Color Separation Fixup
To duplicate a Spot Color separation, the following options are available:
- Templates [1] – settings selected in the dialog can be saved as a template and applied to other Articles/Print Items, as well as used within Fixup Chains and in the Apply Fixups and Check Print Item and Apply Fixups Operations.
- Spot Color Separation to be duplicated [2] – select the Spot Color separation to be duplicated from the dropdown menu. All Spot Colors used in the Print Item are available for selection.
- Spot Color Name for the new Separation [3] – select the name of the new Spot Color separation here. All Spot Colors defined systemwide as separations are available for selection.
- Overprint State [4] – specify whether the new Spot Color separation should be created with Overprint, Knockout, or Unchanged.
- Layer Name [5] – enter the name of the layer on which the new Spot Color separation should be created. If no separate layer is required, simply disable the Fixup. For the Variable Content [7], select the desired placeholder – Database Field or User-defined Field – from which the value for the layer name should be retrieved.
- Conformity of Processing Steps according to ISO 19593-1 [6] – by default, a Varnish separation should be created according to ISO 19593-1 on the layer Varnish within the group Varnish of the type Varnish – though this can also be omitted. For more information on the ISO standard, refer to the description of Processing Steps ISO 19593-1.
3.2. Before/After
To experiment with this function, you can use the sample file "Sample_Duplicate Spot Color Separation.pdf". The example file contains an overprinting white separation whose ink coverage varies depending on the overall job requirements. The same separation is now to be duplicated for Varnish, maintaining the same opacity.
After applying the Fixup, the resulting file is "Sample_Duplicate Spot Color Separation_End.pdf". In this file, the white separation has been duplicated and filled with Varnish. The settings shown in Figure 1 were used to achieve this result.
Figure 2: Left: Original file; Center: Modified file, in which the separation has been duplicated and filled with Varnish; Right: The resulting Varnish and White separations.
Article Update: $PRODUCT_NAME_WORKFLOW 1.20.1 – 04/2025