Adobe Illustrator: Adding, duplicating, and deleting swatches

You can add color swatches to the Swatches palette by dragging and dropping colors on the palette or by using commands in the Swatches palette. To duplicate swatches, use the commands in the Swatches palette or drag the swatch onto the New Swatch button.
To add a color to the Swatches palette:
1 In the Color palette, Gradient palette, or the Fill box and Stroke box in the toolbox, select the color or gradient you want to add to the Swatches palette.

2 Do one of the following:
• Click the New Swatch button at the bottom of the Swatches palette.
• Choose New Swatch from the pop-up menu in the Swatches palette. Enter a name in the Swatch Name text box, choose Process Color or Spot Color from the Color Type pop-up menu, and click OK.
• Drag the color or gradient to the Swatches palette, positioning the pointer where you want the new swatch to appear.
• Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) a color to the Swatches palette to create a spot color. You can also press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while clicking the New Swatch button to create a spot color.
To duplicate a swatch in the Swatches palette:
1 Select the swatch you want to duplicate. To select multiple swatches, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and click each swatch. To select a range of swatches, hold down Shift and click to define the range.

2 Do one of the following:
• Choose Duplicate Swatch from the pop-up menu.
• Drag the swatches to the New Swatch button on the bottom of the palette.
To replace a swatch in the Swatches palette:
Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and drag the color or gradient from the Color palette, Gradient palette, or the Fill box and Stroke box in the toolbox to the Swatches palette, highlighting the swatch you want to replace.
Important: Replacing an existing color, gradient, or pattern in the Swatches palette Globally changes artwork in the file containing that swatch color with the new color, gradient, or pattern. The only exception is for a process color that does not have the Global option selected in the Swatch Options dialog box.
To delete a swatch from the Swatches palette:
1 Select the swatch you want to delete. To select multiple swatches, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and click each swatch. To select adjacent swatches, hold down Shift and click to define the range.

2 Delete the selected swatches in one of the following ways:
• Choose Delete Swatch from the pop-up menu.
• Click the Delete Swatch button at the bottom of the palette.
• Drag the selected swatches to the Delete Swatch button.

Note: When you delete a spot color or global process color swatch (or a pattern or gradient containing a spot or global process color), all objects painted with those colors will be converted to the non-global process color equivalent.

Editing swatches
You can change individual attributes of a swatch—such as its name, color mode, color definition, whether it is process or spot, or whether a process color can be changed globally—using the Swatch Options dialog box.
Any swatch can be named in Adobe Illustrator; for example, you can change the name of a CMYK process color, and it still prints and separates with each of its CMYK values intact.
To edit a swatch:
1 Choose Window > Swatches.

2 Select a swatch, and do one of the following:
• Double-click the swatch.
• Choose Swatch Options from the pop-up menu in the Swatches palette.

3 Enter the relevant information in the Swatch Options dialog box:
• Enter a name in the Swatch Name text box.
• Choose Spot Color or Process Color from the Color Type pop-up menu. Both spot colors and process colors can be changed globally.
• Click Global if you want changes to the selected process color to be applied globally throughout the document.
• Choose CMYK, RGB, Web Safe RGB, HSB, or Grayscale from the Color Mode pop-up menu and change the color definition (if desired) using the color sliders or text boxes at the bottom of the palette.

4 Click OK.

Note: When separated, each spot color is converted to a process color by default, unless you deselect the Convert to Process option in the Separation Setup dialog box.