Reply To: How to convert Pantone color swatches to CMYK to make print-ready PDF?

since CS6, the Pantone Solid Coated and Uncoated libraries, regardless of illustrator, indesign or photoshop, are based on LAB values rather than CMYK equivalents. Others i’m not so sure but those two – definitely.

The ink manager that gert is referring to is available from the flyout panel of the Separations preview palette.

It is also available from the flyout panel of the swatches palette.

Once this palette is open, there is a checkbox on the bottom left corner that says “all spots to process” – click this and all spots – regardless where the colour was created – will be converted to process.

While this checkbox is a down-and-dirty way of changing all spots to process, it is worth noting that the same spot colour can have different colour breakdowns depending on what program contained the colour. This is explained in more detail in an old piece: https://colecandoo.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/spot-color-of-bother/

Ultimately, it depends on how colour critical the output is to yourself, your client or third parties involved (e.g. advertisers that have supplied ads with spot colours that need to meet certain colour criteria).