Inkscape Community

Help Using Inkscape => Beyond the Basics => Topic started by: bladbroker on March 21, 2019, 12:38:38 AM

Title: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: bladbroker on March 21, 2019, 12:38:38 AM

Hello all,

Coming from an industry that sends out artwork to other countries/nations to print on labels or products like bottles, and other materials. They are using CMYK and won't be bothered with converting to RGB. In most cases they won't accept the artwork. What does it mean for Inkscape; there is a whole industry and world that needs and uses CMYK.  The rest of the world could benefit using Inkscape.   If you can point me to the best plug in I would appreciate it. If there is another way to send a vector file and preserving CMYK, please inform me.

Thank you

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: brynn on March 21, 2019, 10:37:22 AM

Welcome to the forum!

CMYK support is one of the most frequently requested features for Inkscape.  Work has recently begun to provide that natively, although it probably will be several months to a year or more, before it's achieved.  Apparently it will require really major changes to Inkscape, to be able to provide this.

Meanwhile, there is an extension that provides CMYK, I think using PDF.  It only officially works with Linux, maybe with Windows, and not at all on Macs.
https://inkscape.org/~wout/★output-pro

For Macs or maybe Windows, this tutorial tells how to use Scribus to get CMYK:  http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/getting-cmyk-colors-from-inkscape-to-scribus

(If this isn't in the FAQ, we should probably add it....  I'll try and do it later today.)

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: Moini on March 21, 2019, 03:00:56 PM

If you call 'thinking about what would probably need to be done' doing the work, then yes, work has started. I would expect this is going to take longer than a year.

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: bladbroker on March 23, 2019, 11:21:45 AM

Brynn,

Thank you for the link....  I have Win10PC.
I came across different ways to install outpost-pro.  I have Windows10, but seeing info saying install "Libcanberra and PyQt4" for Linux, and maybe for Window users; that's vague.

Maybe this will solve my problem; can illistrator open svg files?  If so maybe I'll send it as svg will it keep my cmyk values?

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: flamingolady on March 23, 2019, 01:03:33 PM

To my undersatanding AI can open svg files with no problem.  Don't know if it will retain your cmyk values, but certainly worth a try.
ps, I also posted because I wanted to say kudos on your avi, a smilie on the back of your head, how creative! oh, and welcome to the forum, I don't get on here as often as I'd like these days.
dee

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: bladbroker on March 23, 2019, 03:32:52 PM

 :ur: :ty1:

Title: Re: how to get CMYK from Inkscape
Post by: brynn on March 24, 2019, 05:08:17 AM

Yeah, it is vague.  To be honest, I'm not sure how to install it for Windows.  The way it's written, it sounds like it might work, without anything extra installed.  However I kind of doubt that.  It will take someone knowledgable enough to decipher the Linux instructions, and try it with Windows.

But hopefully the route using Scribus would work.  Were you able to try that?