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Posted to fop-users@xmlgraphics.apache.org by Philip Luppens <ph...@gmail.com> on 2007/11/27 16:28:23 UTC
CMYK/Pantone support
Hi all,
I have inherited a project that's using FOP to create PDFs, and send them to
the printing department. Of course, the printing department doesn't quite
like sRGB color spaces, and they requested the possibility to use the
Pantone color space instead (CMYK being a distant second option). Now, I
have very limited experience with color spaces (read: I knew they existed ..
somewhere ..), so some of this might be entirely wrong (or badly worded).
In the XSL we're using to transform the XML, we're also using external SVG
images. The newly created PDF should be using the Pantone color space. Now,
I wonder: does this mean my SVGs should also be declared in the Pantone
color space, or is this something FOP should take care of (provided that
there is Pantone support, of course) ?
I've seen there is (limited) CMYK support for PDFs, but whatever post/page
I've found regarding Pantone colors, is either complete rubbish (at least
for me), or unanswered.
Kind regards,
Philip
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philip Luppens <ph...@gmail.com>.
First of all, sorry about replying above, and not inline .. Nabble isn't
really making this easy (or I just haven't figured it out).
Thanks for the extensive reply, much appreciated. It definitely clears up a
couple of things for me (and hopefully others).
I'll have a look at the cmyk functions, see if I can get something to work.
As for the help, *sigh*. I'd do so in a heartbeat, but the truth is I'm
simply preparing a study for this project, and I won't actually be the one
implementing it. And as can be expected, my next project has nothing to do
with XSL-FO, so my chances of contributing something back are very limited.
Plus, like you already said, the barrier to enter is quite high. In order to
write a decent manual, one is assumed to be at least familiar with that
particular field and its corresponding FOP implementation - which I am not.
The only thing I have added is an overflow exception in the layout managers
when an overflow is detected (rather than printing a warning) since I needed
that functionality. It was also raised and proposed on this mailing list but
never actually entered in the bug tracker afaict.
Thanks again,
Phil
Jeremias Maerki-2 wrote:
>
> On 27.11.2007 17:22:22 Philip Luppens wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for the swift reply. Ok, so, let's me summarize it and please
>> correct
>> me afterwards. Like I said, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to this.
>
> Hey, I'm no color professional, either. I had to learn a lot about that
> while hacking FOP and I certainly haven't finished learning. I guess at
> some point I'll need a concrete project together with professionals to
> get this to a happy ending.
>
>> So, am I correct when I say that Pantone is not an ICC color space ?
>
> I think so, yes. But I could be wrong and I hope to be corrected if I am.
>
>> So it's
>> not like the printing department can just send me an ICC file, which I
>> then
>> specify in <output-profile> and everything will be fine ? Bummer :-)
>
> No, it's more complicated. You have to specify every single color in the
> FO and SVG content in the right format, too.
>
>> If I were to be sure that the included images were in the correct color
>> space, would that mean those are fine then when included, or would they
>> still be transformed by FOP when dealing with color spaces ?
>
> Actually, bitmap images is one place where we have less of a gap. Some
> image have associated color profiles and they get transported into the
> final PDF so the colors are preserved.
>
>> So how should I go ahead to get the CMYK support going in FO ? You said
>> to
>> specify the output profile, but should I find an .icc profile for that ?
>> And
>> would that require changing anything else, or would the transformation be
>> automatically ?
>
> You need to specify the output profile as described here:
> http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.94/configuration.html#pdf-renderer
>
> CMYK colors are specified like this (let's write more docs on this!):
> rgb-icc(r,g,b,#CMYK,c,m,y,k) <-- #CMYK is a "pseudo-profile"
> or
> cmyk(c,m,y,k)
> (I'd use the rgb-icc() variant for better compatibility with other FO
> implementations which do similar things.)
>
> It's also a good idea to take a look at this page:
> http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.93/pdfx.html
>
>> You spoke about proprietary extensions - does that mean there are
>> companies
>> that provide commercial extensions for Pantone ? Or is that totally out
>> of
>> the question ?
>
> Uhm, no, I mean we would need to specify proprietary ways of specifying
> color in XSL-FO which are not defined by the spec. See the cmyk()
> function above. That's our own invention. It's not in the spec. Possibly
> bad interoperability between XSL-FO implementations which actually
> defeats the purpose of the standard. OTOH, it can eventually lead to a
> feature being adopted in new versions of the standard.
>
>> Sorry for asking these (stupid) questions, but it's hard to find
>> information
>> or code examples on these issues.
>
> That's because not many people do this kind of thing. And that's the
> reason why FOP is not so strong in this area. Help is welcome.
>
> Jeremias Maerki
>
>
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>
>
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
On 27.11.2007 17:22:22 Philip Luppens wrote:
>
> Thanks for the swift reply. Ok, so, let's me summarize it and please correct
> me afterwards. Like I said, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to this.
Hey, I'm no color professional, either. I had to learn a lot about that
while hacking FOP and I certainly haven't finished learning. I guess at
some point I'll need a concrete project together with professionals to
get this to a happy ending.
> So, am I correct when I say that Pantone is not an ICC color space ?
I think so, yes. But I could be wrong and I hope to be corrected if I am.
> So it's
> not like the printing department can just send me an ICC file, which I then
> specify in <output-profile> and everything will be fine ? Bummer :-)
No, it's more complicated. You have to specify every single color in the
FO and SVG content in the right format, too.
> If I were to be sure that the included images were in the correct color
> space, would that mean those are fine then when included, or would they
> still be transformed by FOP when dealing with color spaces ?
Actually, bitmap images is one place where we have less of a gap. Some
image have associated color profiles and they get transported into the
final PDF so the colors are preserved.
> So how should I go ahead to get the CMYK support going in FO ? You said to
> specify the output profile, but should I find an .icc profile for that ? And
> would that require changing anything else, or would the transformation be
> automatically ?
You need to specify the output profile as described here:
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.94/configuration.html#pdf-renderer
CMYK colors are specified like this (let's write more docs on this!):
rgb-icc(r,g,b,#CMYK,c,m,y,k) <-- #CMYK is a "pseudo-profile"
or
cmyk(c,m,y,k)
(I'd use the rgb-icc() variant for better compatibility with other FO
implementations which do similar things.)
It's also a good idea to take a look at this page:
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.93/pdfx.html
> You spoke about proprietary extensions - does that mean there are companies
> that provide commercial extensions for Pantone ? Or is that totally out of
> the question ?
Uhm, no, I mean we would need to specify proprietary ways of specifying
color in XSL-FO which are not defined by the spec. See the cmyk()
function above. That's our own invention. It's not in the spec. Possibly
bad interoperability between XSL-FO implementations which actually
defeats the purpose of the standard. OTOH, it can eventually lead to a
feature being adopted in new versions of the standard.
> Sorry for asking these (stupid) questions, but it's hard to find information
> or code examples on these issues.
That's because not many people do this kind of thing. And that's the
reason why FOP is not so strong in this area. Help is welcome.
Jeremias Maerki
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philip Luppens <ph...@gmail.com>.
Philipp Wagner-3 wrote:
>
> Philip Luppens schrieb:
>>
>> Philipp Wagner-3 wrote:
>>> Please have a look at the internet, there are some good articles about
>>> this topic, as it pops up every now and then.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the explanation. I already knew most of what you told, but I'm
>> simply struggling with the concept when integrating with XSL-FO. Like I
>> said, there's very limited information when dealing with CMYK (other
>> than:
>> "there's support for CMYK in 0.93" and the source code).
>
> Spot colors (no matter if Pantone or whatever else) are not supported by
> XSL-FO to my knowledge. To specify a spot color in a PDF document, you
> have to give the name of the spot color (= some string without special
> meaning, your printer has to know how to interpret this) and a RGB
> representation of the color so that Acrobat can display it close to
> correct. This RGB-representation can be completely wrong, then you're
> document will look wrong when viewed on screen but will be correctly
> printed (if your printer uses the color you specified in the color name).
>
> See how Xml2Pdf by Altanova solves this problem:
> http://alt-soft.com/Support_kb_color_management.aspx
>
> The first paragraph says it all:
> Xml2PDF supports also a number of conventions (!) for RGB, CMYK,
> Grayscale, Spot and some other colors.
>
> This means, by adding custom attributes (or "conventions", as they did),
> it would be possible for FOP to support spot colors.
>
> Philipp
>
>
Thanks a lot Philipp - I'll explore that site further, and see if they
provide a possible solution for my case.
Kind regards,
Phil
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philipp Wagner <ph...@med.uni-muenchen.de>.
Philip Luppens schrieb:
>
> Philipp Wagner-3 wrote:
>> Please have a look at the internet, there are some good articles about
>> this topic, as it pops up every now and then.
>>
>
> Thanks for the explanation. I already knew most of what you told, but I'm
> simply struggling with the concept when integrating with XSL-FO. Like I
> said, there's very limited information when dealing with CMYK (other than:
> "there's support for CMYK in 0.93" and the source code).
Spot colors (no matter if Pantone or whatever else) are not supported by
XSL-FO to my knowledge. To specify a spot color in a PDF document, you
have to give the name of the spot color (= some string without special
meaning, your printer has to know how to interpret this) and a RGB
representation of the color so that Acrobat can display it close to
correct. This RGB-representation can be completely wrong, then you're
document will look wrong when viewed on screen but will be correctly
printed (if your printer uses the color you specified in the color name).
See how Xml2Pdf by Altanova solves this problem:
http://alt-soft.com/Support_kb_color_management.aspx
The first paragraph says it all:
Xml2PDF supports also a number of conventions (!) for RGB, CMYK,
Grayscale, Spot and some other colors.
This means, by adding custom attributes (or "conventions", as they did),
it would be possible for FOP to support spot colors.
Philipp
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philip Luppens <ph...@gmail.com>.
Philipp Wagner-3 wrote:
>
> Please have a look at the internet, there are some good articles about
> this topic, as it pops up every now and then.
>
Thanks for the explanation. I already knew most of what you told, but I'm
simply struggling with the concept when integrating with XSL-FO. Like I
said, there's very limited information when dealing with CMYK (other than:
"there's support for CMYK in 0.93" and the source code).
My question about Pantone is something that would probably need to be solved
with the printing department (they said CMYK could do, but they preferred
Pantone). But since I see my wording isn't accurate enough, I'll ask them to
provide a better explanation ;-)
Thanks again,
Phil
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philipp Wagner <ph...@med.uni-muenchen.de>.
Philip Luppens schrieb:
> Thanks for the swift reply. Ok, so, let's me summarize it and please correct
> me afterwards. Like I said, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to this.
>
> So, am I correct when I say that Pantone is not an ICC color space ? So it's
> not like the printing department can just send me an ICC file, which I then
> specify in <output-profile> and everything will be fine ? Bummer :-)
No, Pantone sells color swatches. You go to your printer, say this color
looks nice (on the given paper) and he then knows how to mix the ink
that the color looks like the one you chose.
There is no real way of converting CMYK (or RGB) colors to "Pantone" or
the other way round. Many software applications (like Photoshop) contain
matching tables which give you an estimation of how the color will look
like on a given paper (usually coated and/or uncoated paper). You can
find some of these tables on the internet, but it't not possible to
include them in open source software.
You don't use Pantone colors like RGB or CMYK, they are spot colors or
used for colors like metallic or gold/silver. Usually, a company has a
letterhead with only one specific color, that's specified in Pantone (or
HSK, which is used mainly in Germany, but essentially the same).
Imagine offset printing: if printing CMYK, your printer will have four
plates (one for every color). The pictures are rasterized and the four
colors will mix to give your eye the right color.
If you are printing using some Pantone spotcolors, your printer will
have one plate for Pantone #XX, one for Pantone #XY and so on. #XX may
be a specific green, #XY may be gold and so on. Usually, they are not
rasterized like the CMYK-plates, but contain the solid color (which
means, red and blue won't give you violet).
Please have a look at the internet, there are some good articles about
this topic, as it pops up every now and then.
Philipp
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Philip Luppens <ph...@gmail.com>.
Thanks for the swift reply. Ok, so, let's me summarize it and please correct
me afterwards. Like I said, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to this.
So, am I correct when I say that Pantone is not an ICC color space ? So it's
not like the printing department can just send me an ICC file, which I then
specify in <output-profile> and everything will be fine ? Bummer :-)
If I were to be sure that the included images were in the correct color
space, would that mean those are fine then when included, or would they
still be transformed by FOP when dealing with color spaces ?
So how should I go ahead to get the CMYK support going in FO ? You said to
specify the output profile, but should I find an .icc profile for that ? And
would that require changing anything else, or would the transformation be
automatically ?
You spoke about proprietary extensions - does that mean there are companies
that provide commercial extensions for Pantone ? Or is that totally out of
the question ?
Sorry for asking these (stupid) questions, but it's hard to find information
or code examples on these issues.
Phil
Jeremias Maerki-2 wrote:
>
> Using Pantone colors is not an option using plain SVG or XSL-FO. Both
> standard use sRGB by default and support ICC color spaces in addition to
> that. Everything else means the usage of proprietary extensions.
>
> We now have some support for CMYK and you can specify an output profile
> to map those CMYK colors into a calibrated space. But that does only
> work for the XSL-FO part. SVG is a different story. I don't even know if
> ICC colors in SVG would be handled correctly for PDF output at the
> moment.
>
> If you need more than that, it's Java hacking time in Batik and FOP. :-)
>
> If sRGB is out of the question, I'd try in the direction of ICC colors
> but that might still require some work in both products.
>
> Jeremias Maerki
>
>
>
> On 27.11.2007 16:28:23 Philip Luppens wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have inherited a project that's using FOP to create PDFs, and send them
>> to
>> the printing department. Of course, the printing department doesn't quite
>> like sRGB color spaces, and they requested the possibility to use the
>> Pantone color space instead (CMYK being a distant second option). Now, I
>> have very limited experience with color spaces (read: I knew they existed
>> ..
>> somewhere ..), so some of this might be entirely wrong (or badly worded).
>>
>> In the XSL we're using to transform the XML, we're also using external
>> SVG
>> images. The newly created PDF should be using the Pantone color space.
>> Now,
>> I wonder: does this mean my SVGs should also be declared in the Pantone
>> color space, or is this something FOP should take care of (provided that
>> there is Pantone support, of course) ?
>>
>> I've seen there is (limited) CMYK support for PDFs, but whatever
>> post/page
>> I've found regarding Pantone colors, is either complete rubbish (at least
>> for me), or unanswered.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Philip
>> --
>> View this message in context:
>> http://www.nabble.com/CMYK-Pantone-support-tf4882401.html#a13972838
>> Sent from the FOP - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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>
>
>
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Re: CMYK/Pantone support
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
Using Pantone colors is not an option using plain SVG or XSL-FO. Both
standard use sRGB by default and support ICC color spaces in addition to
that. Everything else means the usage of proprietary extensions.
We now have some support for CMYK and you can specify an output profile
to map those CMYK colors into a calibrated space. But that does only
work for the XSL-FO part. SVG is a different story. I don't even know if
ICC colors in SVG would be handled correctly for PDF output at the
moment.
If you need more than that, it's Java hacking time in Batik and FOP. :-)
If sRGB is out of the question, I'd try in the direction of ICC colors
but that might still require some work in both products.
Jeremias Maerki
On 27.11.2007 16:28:23 Philip Luppens wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have inherited a project that's using FOP to create PDFs, and send them to
> the printing department. Of course, the printing department doesn't quite
> like sRGB color spaces, and they requested the possibility to use the
> Pantone color space instead (CMYK being a distant second option). Now, I
> have very limited experience with color spaces (read: I knew they existed ..
> somewhere ..), so some of this might be entirely wrong (or badly worded).
>
> In the XSL we're using to transform the XML, we're also using external SVG
> images. The newly created PDF should be using the Pantone color space. Now,
> I wonder: does this mean my SVGs should also be declared in the Pantone
> color space, or is this something FOP should take care of (provided that
> there is Pantone support, of course) ?
>
> I've seen there is (limited) CMYK support for PDFs, but whatever post/page
> I've found regarding Pantone colors, is either complete rubbish (at least
> for me), or unanswered.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Philip
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/CMYK-Pantone-support-tf4882401.html#a13972838
> Sent from the FOP - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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