GeorgeKN

Dear Alan, aside from some communicative problems i think we have nevertheless the same technical opinion. :-)) Thats a positiv matter. Technical based discussion would be much better for board users than a personal based one. Even as personal remarks and misunderstandings are not interesting. Thank you for your prior shares and telling your expert knowledge. It was very interessting to see other people have the same problems or can at least understand it. Best regards George

Hi Alan, i can repeat the whole stuff once more, but i am wondering why you are suddenly deny all things discussed above. Dicussed facts are fixed and absolut exactly actuallity. Color definitions within VW are a absolut constant matter of fact. Therefore it's not necessary to challange such basic defaults. And yes, i repeat it once again. Yes my people are telling me the values should be working within VW. I explained it serveral times above and you can read it there. But lets stop now this kind of bubble gum discussion. I realize your tactic to ignore upright arguments and replace them with simple assumptions. VectorWorks has earned a more objective kind of articulation. This is not a "good cop - bad cop" story, but the trial to hold on VW as the best CAD-Software in the graphic area. Even as such things can be discussed, VW has grown up to one of the most multifunctional CAD-Software of the world. If we stop discussion, development can stop also. That shouldn't be the intention of this wishes-board. Its a absolutely benefit we even are able to discuss this issue. Other CAD programms can't use OS clipboard, OS typefaces or OS printer drivers. I think its now everything said to this issue. Lets await next updates or latest news of NNA regarding this case. That would be more interessting. George

Hi Alan and Travis, thank you for translating/understanding my problem. Here now a constructive workaround. Following workflow describes it: (1) Draw a green rectangle area within VectorWorks. Set CMYK values to: 100/0/100/0 - (2) Then print it via Adobe Acrobat/Destiller to a PDF file - (3) This file you can open with Adobe Illustrator (AI) and control the CMYK values (for example: 56/0/88/0). - (4) Because of further discussed reasons AI values are different and can now set back manually to 100/0/100/0. Now AI can create a new PDF or you can do a color separated AI export however. You see, we don't need not necessarily a graphics specialist. Perhaps it's not for everbodies usage, but it helps. If somebody wants, i can email my specific testfiles. Best regards and thank you all for your interesting response George

Hi Alan and Mike, thank you for your great response. But let me show now the problem once again. At first i thought in the same way as you. But my case is very, very simple. Customer of mine doesn't want to calibrate a huge number of printing components or wants to design best colors of the world. They are practitioners and no theoreticians. Because of this they are thinking reverse - from the machine back to the drawing table. (You all are thinking the other way...:-)) ) Their machine is only able to mix/print liquid colors according to the CMYK method. In this manner they get "all allowed" colors they can print. As CAD designers doesn't primary need their own color values, they are taking now this predefined machine output colors (= paper result). Thats logical i think, and the best way to exclude future communication problems. This is by the way the same procedure as every HP DesignJet works... When we see Apples OS color piker sytem (RGB and CMYK) and if we assume Microsoft will exand in future OS-Updates from single RGB to RGB/CMYK color picker, it would be a good idea for VectoWorks to get ready for this OS defaults. Would Apples OS be the same nowadays, if people in past would have discussed implementation of common fonts, common clipboard and common printer drivers in a simular way like we? "Oh we can't do this, it is too expensive - Lets better do a workaround - Most people don't need this new-fashioned issue..." :-)) You can believe me that this issue will come before next meteorite will crash to earth. If not, i doesn't really care... I hope you can also see this with a little humor. Time will show all..... Best regards George

Hi, thats very funny. But doesn't touch our problem remotely. Unfortunately we haven't to pick up lotto numbers, because we already have exact dafault CMYK values, that have to reach the printing paper. Curious that some people wants to ignore this. I know, that some private users can't understand the problem, but professional customers have to work with correct CMYK values because there are cooperation contracts. There is a lot of money at stake. (...ok, i know now, fortunately it's not yours..,:-)) )

Tell this to all windows users. They will be happy and deeply grateful :-)) And while people are discussing responsibilty with Apple some (even apple-)user have to do the boring job of converting colors in photoshop to CMYK. Did you have a look to color picker of Adobe Creativ Suite programs? I think that is the way customers really need. Best 'color picker' cannot work properly if applikations interface don't support CMYK values - unfortunately. Therefore it would be a great development progress to have a CMYK definition within VectorWorks. I am confident and still hoping that v12 will bring something new. Thats only a wish!

Hallo Mike and Kaare, thank you for your response. In former times i though the same as you. The world was OK so far. But Mike, you nearly hit the problem exactly with your words "could cost him thousands of dollars". I will resume now. If you are printing on your own printers and plotters at home/office you can't see the problem, because you are thinking in screen colors and the printers result will be different anyway. Who ever knows the exact appearance of CMYK 20/12/69/30. We all believe our printers results. But this result will be wrong in every case. In fact you can choose CMYK colors but VW will post them as RGB values to the printer interface. So they automatically ever loose the correct CMYK values. Until you are printing for your own use that is no problem. But if you have customers like a graphic artist or graphic designer who ist designing with exact CMYK values - or most professional printing plants or magazin publishing companies - you will see they need exact CMYK values to set up their (huge) printing machines. Also all Digital Print Centers are defining colors with CMYK. If you want send now these recipient the correct colors in a correct manner it is really neccessary to use the Adobe Destillers fileformat via printing a PDF(EPS)-File. So far your graphic artist friend does absolutely the right thing. But in this moment the same problem occures as on your local printer! PDF printer is recieving also Vectorworks RGB values right in this moment. So we are actually captured in VectorWorks RGB printers interface trap. Mac version shows indeed CMYK sliders interface but in truth it is calculating internal with RGB values. The same will happen if you produce any export file. So it would be a urgend issue to built in a CMYK option to get a better color printing tranfer. Regards George Wider

VW isn't able to define colors in CMYK. Built in RGB method is not able to transmit colors in a correct manner to standard software as adobe photoshop, illustrator or indesign. It is also not possible to make a workaround with adobe destiller settings. No color profile setting was able to solve this problem. I testet ALL options during lot of days. VectorWorks RGB-Colors were converted to CMYK by all adobe software products by random-method. Thats "a missing link" of macintosh based and developed software like VectorWorks. The result is, we can do NO PROFESSIONAL printing with CMYK-values - such as publishing companies, magazine producers or printing plants must have to do a correct job. Could you please implement CMYK-Definitions to VectorWorks 12 - or as fast as possible? Thank you for any response George Wider

Hallo Kati, which software application did you use? Can you tell me the name of the software/distribution? Thank you and anyboda for any answer. Best regards George

Hallo#2! important: is there an trick or a workaround to solve this problem? Thanks to everybodies answer... Best regards George

Hallo! I want to transfer VectorWorks defined CMYK-Colors in an exakt manner to Illustrator (AI) or PhotoShop (PS). Via Export EPS or plotting to PDF via Adobe Acrobat it is not possible to get the same CMYK-% in PS or AI as defined before in VW. Could you please change the old VectorWorks-RGB-Method to a new VectorWorks-CMYK-Method? I would send you 1 box german blackforest beer "Waldhaus Diplom Pils". (Best beer of the world!) Thank you for an answer an best regards George