Reply To: Color Type: Spot / Color Mode: CMYK

Thanks for the reply David – and glad it wasn’t a stupid question!

I’m still confused though… How does the printer know what to print?

For example if I made a design and colored it with a Spot swatch called MEGA_YELLOW with CMYK values of 0,0,100,15. I export it to PDF and send to the printer.

He will see a sepaearyion called MEGA_YELLOW but how does he work out how to make the yellow? Does he just manually match it to what he deems to be the nearest Pantone? Or does the RIP process do some guesswork?

I’m sorry if this is basic print knowledge but I’m afraid I’m a little bit of a product of my time – in that I know how to use the software but my knowledge of the actual technical processes behind the scenes are a little flakey. :/

thanks again