Hi, I'm brand new to Inkscape and downloaded a package off Creative Market. I have figured out how to use most of it (fonts, etc) but can't import the watercolour swatches. The designer used AI and I'm worried I paid a bunch of $ for for the swatches to not be compatible with Inkscape. I've googled it to death and just can't find an answer. I also asked the designer who hasn't responded. Would be super grateful for any help!! Thanks, Mitchy

If your swatches are in .gpl files, you should be able to just place them in the palettes folder of Inkscape:

Importing your palette is carried out using Explorer on Windows or Finder on Mac OS X.

On Windows open your C drive and go to the Program Files folder. In there, you should find a folder named Inkscape. Open that folder and then the share folder and then the palettes folder. You can now move or copy the GPL file that you previously created into this folder.

If you're using OS X, open the Applications folder and right-click on the Inkscape application and select Show Package Contents.

This should open a new Finder window and now you can open the Contents folder, then Resources and finally palettes. You can move or copy your GPL file into this final folder.

I guess they might not be compatible, then. The 'swatches' concept is one that is implemented in a very different way in Inkscape, because of the constraints of the SVG format. It may be that there just exists no implementation for importing them (yet).

If you need this feature, please make a feature request at https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape , and please also include a file that contains AI swatches (and that you can legally share), so Inkscape devs have a chance to see how they are implemented in AI.

If Adobe is using binary blobs instead of readable contents (a technique called vendor lock-in...), though, this could make it very hard to even *find* the swatches in their files.

If the colors are in the file, you can manually turn their swatches into Inkscape swatches, though.

(and, by the way, are you talking about swatch fills, i.e. named colors that can be reused throughout the document and be changed centrally, or about simple palettes? tylerdurden's answer is about palettes, mine is about the first concept.)

I think these AI swatches are not compatible with Inkscape due to their prefix - watercolour. I believe these are the raster images and not just colors. As far as I can tell - Inkscape can`t handle that kind of swatches.

If OP could post some sort of illustration, depicting these swatches - I`m pretty much sure the whole mistery would be easier to solve.