Pantone/Spot colors are changed after DOCX to PDF conversion using .NET

[andrelafond]

I am currently evaluating Aspose.Word, we have a long list of requirements and so far, the only one that seems to be a blocker is the loss of Pantone (Spot) colors when saving a Word document to Word.

The following scenario currently works for us in our application:

• Using an external tool, an EPS file containing Pantone colors is converted to a WMF file in which the Pantone colors are preserved
• On the user’s desktop, a user inserts the WMF image in the Word document and saves the document
• An automated process (our current application) opens the Word document, prints to a PS file and send to Acrobat Distiller, which generates a PDF which contains Pantone colors
• The document is sent to the printer

We intend to develop a .NET process, using Aspose, which would save the Word document to PDF. In our tests, we see that we are loosing the Pantone colors, which is critical for us.

Searching the forum, I found the 2 following discussions, which seem to indicate that Aspose does not yet support Pantone colors:

Spot colors

Hi Jan, Before I comment further, I have noticed that you have inquired the support of Spot colors in Aspose.Pdf.Kit. Do you need support for Spot colors in Aspose.Pdf for .NET (which contains legacy Aspose.Pdf.Kit for .NET under Aspose.Pdf.Facades namespace) or you need this support in Aspose.Pdf.Kit for Java (its still being used as a separate product). Please confirm as it will help us in answering this query in more appropriate manner. PS, In my earlier reply, I have shared the information …

issue PDFNEWNET-34163

1339×556 14.8 KB

Hi, A client of ours has expressed a desire to use Pantones in their PDF’s before being sent off for printing. Can you advise what we would need to do to support this and how to change the pdf from CYMK format to Pantone? Regards, Simon

PDFNEWNET-22016

Questions:

• Can you confirm if Pantone colors are supported or not in Aspose.Word for .NET
• If not, then would the Aspose.PDF product be of any help for implementing the above described scenario?
• If not, can you qualify where would this issue stand in your priorities? What is the chance that this issue could be resolved within the coming year before we are done with our full implementation of Aspose?

Again, this issue could be a blocker for us if not resolved or no workaround can be found.

Thanks in advance.

[tahir.manzoor]

@andrelafond,

Thanks for your inquiry.

If not, then would the Aspose.PDF product be of any help for implementing the above described scenario?

We have verified the status of Aspose.PDF issues and regret to share with you that the PDFNET-34163 is still pending for analysis. Hopefully, the fix of PDFNEWNET-22016 is available in April 2018 release. Please note that this estimate is not final at the moment. We apologize for your inconvenience.

Can you confirm if Pantone colors are supported or not in Aspose.Word for .NET

Please ZIP and attach the following resources here for our reference. We will then provide you more information about your query.

• Your input Word document.
• Please attach the expected output PDF that shows the desired behavior.
• Please share the steps that you are using to check Pantone colors.

Thanks for your cooperation.

PS: To attach these resources, please zip and upload them.

[andrelafond]

Demo Pantone for Aspose.zip (510.2 KB)

Tahir,

thanks for the quick response. Please find attached a zip file with source files, instructions and expected vs bad PDF result. Let me know if need anymore info.

One additional note. When using the Save As PDF from MS Word on Windows (version 2016, for example), Pantone colors are also lost. They are preserved with the Save As PDF on the Mac version, but not on Windows. You will see in the document how we generate our PDF, printing to postscript then going through Acrobat Distiller. Given that MS Word on Window is not preserving Pantone colors, it would be totally acceptable if the option of preserving Pantone colors (as MS Word Mac does) was an additional param to the PDF settings. No need to be the default.

We need Aspose.Word to preserve Pantone colors when saving to PDF because our requirement using Aspose is to get rid of both the MS Word API and Acrobat Distiller. Our target architecture needs to be 100% based on .NET code and not rely on external applications for this workflow.

[tahir.manzoor]

@andrelafond,

Thanks for sharing the detail. We have logged this feature request as WORDSNET-16409 in our issue tracking system. You will be notified via this forum thread once this feature is available.

We apologize for your inconvenience.

[tahir.manzoor]

@andrelafond

It is to inform you that the issue which you are facing is actually not a bug in Aspose.Words. So, we have closed this issue (WORDSNET-16409) as ‘Not a Bug’.

You can workaround this issue by saving document to PDF with regular RGB image using Aspose.Words. The Aspose.PDF replaces an RGB image with EPS image. This way Aspose.PDF should support inserting an EPS image which implies an EPS->PDF conversion.