[xep-support] Support inquiry

[Nikolai Grigoriev]

Hi Michael,

> Some parts of the writing on the cards need to be printed in a special
> color named Pantone Cool Gray 11. We used rgb(98,101,109) [#62656D] which
> in fact is Pantone Cool Gray 11 to represent it.
> Customer is nearly satiesfied but there is the printing color exception.
> RGB should not be used but the color's name.

You need colors represented in "separation" color model, not supported
in the current version of XEP. We don't have specific plans about it:
it is a very specific domain, a bit apart from the mainstream of XEP
application cases.

Please note however that XEP is not bound to RGB only. Since version 3.1,
XEP can produce PDF output with three types of colors:

1. Grayscale (/DeviceGray), generated for colors specified as:
    - predefined names 'white', 'silver', 'gray', and 'black';
    - HTML-style RGB values with R=G=B: #555, #939393;
    - built-in pseudoprofile: rgb-icc(128, 128, 128, #Grayscale, 0.5)

2. RGB  (/DeviceRGB), generated for colors specified as:
    - HTML predefined names and RGB values not mentioned above;
    - rgb() function: rgb(255, 128, 0), rgb(127.5, 127.5, 127.5).
      Note: rgb() function is not cast to grayscale even if all three
      components are the same; use it to force usage of /DeviceRGB
      for grayscale.

3. CMYK (/DeviceCMYK), generated through a built-in pseudoprofile:
      rgb-icc (255, 255, 0, #CMYK, 0, 0, 1, 0)

I suggest that you try representing your color as /DeviceCMYK:
chances are that the printer is more prone to accept it.

> Does anybody know if there is a way to incorporate the color information
> Pantone Cool Gray 11 into the final PDF file so it can be interpreted by a
> professional printing machine using XEP Renderung Engine?

I see two possibilities:

a) produce PostScript instead of PDF; then posprocess it, replacing
all instances of the RGB color by an equivalent specification in
"separation" colorspace; then distill the result back to PDF; or,

b) order us a custom extension to XEP, to make it digest separated colors.

Best regards,
Nikolai Grigoriev
RenderX

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