InDesign: Finding the Unfindable Swatch, Deleting the Undeletable Swatch

Finding the Unfindable Swatch, Deleting the Undeletable Swatch
Most often, a swatch that cannot be deleted in InDesign is actually contained within a placed EPS, PDF, AI, or other image asset. InDesign can place and modify such assets within the context of the instance on the page, but it cannot edit the asset itself, cannot change the EPS, PDF, AI or what have you. Therefore, InDesign can’t delete or alter swatches that may be in the asset. Worse, you often can’t even find where the color is used. Often this happens because the path carrying the offending color is hidden behind other paths and, even more common, there is no path, just a single anchor point. In vector drawing, a single anchor point is considered an object just as surely as a complex path. As an object, the anchor point may have a fill and/or stroke color assigned to it even though there isn’t a path to make either fill or stroke visible. One errant click of the mouse in Illustrator or another program can create an orphaned anchor point, and thus an orphaned color instance, resulting in an undeletable color swatch in InDesign. Because these orphaned anchor points are invisible, they’re also often impossible to find—unless you know to look for them and how to look.

Find the Image
First, in InDesign, identify the image that is the source of the undeletable color swatch.
1. Save a copy of the document—never perform troubleshooting on the original.
2. Remove all unused swatches from the Swatches panel to narrow the possibilities and make cleanup easier.
3. Go back to the first page of your document containing placed assets, and select and delete all placed assets. Select all unused swatches again with the appropriate Swatches panel command. Is the ostensibly undeletable swatch among those highlighted as unused? If not, move on to page 2, deleting all placed assets and then selecting all unused swatches. Keep repeating this seek-and destroy process until the swatch does get selected by the Select All Unused command.
4. When removing all objects and then selecting unused swatches causes the undeletable swatch to be flagged as not in use, you will have found the page containing the swatch. The next step is to narrow that down to the exact image. So, press Cmd+Z/Ctrl+Z to undo the deletion of all of the page’s objects, and then, one at a time, delete each placed asset object and choose Select All Unused from the Swatches panel flyout menu. Eventually, the undeletable swatch will be among the selected, identifying the exact image that contains it.
5. Press Cmd+Z/Ctrl+Z again to restore the image you just deleted, and keep it selected.
6. On the Links panel (Window >Links), the asset will also be highlighted. Click the Edit Original button at the bottom of the Links panel, the button that looks like a pencil, which will open the application registered on your system to edit such imagery—Illustrator for vector or Photoshop for raster, for example. Note: If the undeletable swatch is not contained within a linked asset, if it’s instead within objects or imagery that were pasted into InDesign, the Links panel will not help you. Instead, copy the asset and paste it back into the application that created it. Make the necessary changes and then copy and paste back into InDesign.

If the Edit Original Command Opens Photoshop…
1. Open the Channels panel in Photoshop (Window Channels). RGB, Lab, and process colors created in Photoshop do not generate swatches upon import of the image to InDesign. Only spot colors, created on separate channels, create InDesign swatches. Therefore, your undeletable swatch will be a separate channel beneath the Red, Green, and Blue channels or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black channels. That channel’s name will be the same as the title of the InDesign swatch.
2. Turn off all channels except the offending spot color channel by clicking the eyeball icon beside each of the other channels. When only the spot color channel is visible, its contents will render onscreen in black rather than in the actual color.
3. Examine the image data there. Do you need it? Should it remain a spot color, generating a new plate upon separation output from InDesign or the RIP? If your answer is yes, close everything and go back to your original InDesign document to keep working. If no, if you don’t want the spot color, decide whether you want that image data at all. To keep the image data but convert the spot color into the nearest equivalent mix of process inks (or RGB), highlight the spot channel and choose Merge Spot Channel from the Channels panel flyout menu. The image data on the spot channel will become part of the CMYK or RGB channels, approximating the original spot color as closely as those color models allow. Note that Merge Spot Channel is not available for images in Lab mode. If your image is in Lab mode, you’ll need to first convert it to RGB or CMYK with the appropriate command on the Image Image Mode menu. If you decide you don’t want the spot color or the image data on the channel, select the spot channel and drag and drop it atop the trashcan icon at the bottom of the Channels panel.
4. Save the document and close Photoshop. Because you used InDesign’s Edit Original command, InDesign will automatically update the placed asset without further action required. When you reopen your original document, of course, you’ll be prompted to update the image with a single button click. In both the original and temporary troubleshooting copy, the formerly undeletable swatch should now be delete-able.

If the Edit Original Command Opens Illustrator…
1. Illustrator is much more like InDesign than like Photoshop in terms of color handling and swatches. You won’t find a Channels panel, for instance. Instead, you’ll need to locate the path or anchor point containing the unwanted spot color swatch. On Illustrator’s Swatches panel you’ll find the offending swatch (hint: spot color swatches appear with a black dot inside a white triangle in their lower-right corners). With no objects selected, choose from the Swatches panel the spot color swatch of which you want to rid yourself.
2. Go to Select >Same >Fill Color. Illustrator will then select any and all paths (and orphaned anchor points) filled with that color. If nothing was selected, move on to step 3; otherwise, skip down to step 4.
3. If trying to select objects with the offending swatch as their fill produced no results, then it isn’t being used as a fill color. Try looking for it as a stroke color with Select >Same >Stroke Color.
4. Examine what was selected and decide whether to delete or recolor it. If you decide that you don’t need the selected items, press the Delete key on your keyboard. Poof! Problem solved. However, if you decide you do want the selected paths, you just don’t want them to use a spot color ink, convert the spot color to CMYK or RGB. Double-click the swatch in the Swatches panel and, in the Swatch Options dialog, change Color Mode to CMYK or RGB and then the Color Type field to Process Color. Note: Even if you did get hits on the fill color, it’s a good idea to go back and look for any paths with that stroke color as well.
5. Save the document and close Illustrator. Because you used InDesign’s Edit Original command, InDesign will automatically update the placed asset without further action required. When you reopen your original document, of course, you’ll be prompted to update the image with a single button click. In both the original and temporary troubleshooting copy, the formerly undeletable swatch should now be deletable.
Note: Illustrator artwork can contain both embedded and linked raster images and even other vector art files. It’s entirely possible to have a Russian doll of images—one image placed into another, which is placed into another, and another, and so on. If you determine that the unwanted swatch is within a linked asset rather than the Illustrator document itself, use the Edit Original command on Illustrator’s identical Links panel, and then follow the same procedures above for whichever application opens.

If the Edit Original Command Opens Another Application…
Most raster image editors will conform at least loosely to the Photoshop directions, and most vector drawing applications to the Illustrator. Use those as guides within the unique environments and user interfaces of whichever applications you employ to edit raster and vector artwork.