CHROMiX

Using CGATS files that contain strings in double quotes prove problematic for colorthink

CHROMiX ColorThink
#1

Recently I was using the text file output of Pantone Color Manager for the cotton tcx deck in order to create a CGATS file for input into Colorthink Pro. The purpose was to superimpose the pantone Lab* swatches on top of an icc profile gamut display so as to indicate which swatches are in or out of gamut. I was hoping to create a report of the swatches which were in gamut using a ‘select all’, copy to excel, and print.

The problem is that upon CGATS input, a pantone swatch name such as “PANTONE 11-4001 TCX” is not imported correctly into Colorthink Pro. It is simply rendered as ‘Sample n’, depending on which of the 2,625 swatches it is within the Cotton TCX fan deck.

Any chance of this getting fixed?

#2

ColorThink Pro should load the file OK with the sample name

Check to see if the file has the heading “sample_name” for the column containing the names

Feel free to DM the file to me and I’ll take a look

Steve

#3

Thank you for mentioning the needed column name- I didn’t know that.

Once I used the the term SAMPLE_NAME in the first column for the
BEGIN_DATA/END_DATA section, it worked fine. Only wrinkle was
that Colorthink Pro’s worksheet appears to have a limitation in being
able to display long SAMPLE_NAMEs.

When I copied and pasted the whole worksheet into excel, the SAMPLE_NAMEs
showed up properly. Is there anything I can do to get the Colorthink Pro
worksheet to show full SAMPLE_NAMEs?

Thank you for your help.

#4

The existing ColorThink Pro has a set limit to the size of the sample name shown in the Worksheet. If it makes you feel any better, this is a very popular request that comes through our Feature Requests - and you mentioning it again here will encourage us all the more to offer a better option for our next major upgrade to ColorThink. It is in the works.

In the meantime, a quick way around this is to do a Find & Replace for your CGATS file. Search for “PANTONE_” and replace it with nothing. This should shorten the names in the file so that you can identify the actual color names.