Select Window > Color from the menu to open the Color panel.
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Learn the basics
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Draw shapes and paths
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Draw shapes
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- Pencil tool options
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Modify paths
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Reshape and transform objects
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- About perspective drawing
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Create traces, mockups, and symbols
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- Symbols panel options
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Measure and align
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Paint and fill
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Learn painting basics
- About fills and strokes
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- Paint tools overview
- Merge paths using the Blob Brush tool
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- About Live Paint
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- Paint with the Live Paint Bucket tool
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- Live Paint limitations
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Apply and edit strokes
- About brushes
- Brushes panel overview
- Draw paths with brush strokes
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Learn painting basics
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Manage colors
- Learn color basics
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Select and adjust colors
- About selecting colors
- Color Picker overview
- Select colors using the Color Picker
- Color panel options
- Select colors using the Color panel
- Convert color modes
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- Get precise spot colors using lab values
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Use swatches
- About Swatches
- Swatches panel overview
- Add colors to swatches
- Create swatches from the Color Guide panel
- Create process color swatches
- Create spot-color swatches
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Modify colors
- Recolor artwork
- Recolor options overview
- Edit colors using Edit Colors dialog
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Apply transparency and blending
- Transparency panel overview
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- Opacity mask overview
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- Create transparency knockout groups
- View transparency in the artwork
- Blended objects overview
- Blending mode types
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- Blend Options overview
- Modify the spine of blended objects
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Design with text
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Work with fonts and scripts
- Font browser overview
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- Apply the fonts organized in Creative Cloud Libraries
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- Supported font file types in Adobe Illustrator
- Edit fonts
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- Edit text without replacing missing fonts
- Identify fonts using Retype
- Apply Retype-suggested fonts to live text
- About Adobe Asian composers
- Justify text using Kashida and hyphenation
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Edit and format text
- Character panel overview
- Transform text
- Underline or strikethrough text
- Change case and capitalization styles
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- Paragraph panel overview
- Align text
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Use special characters and glyphs
- About character sets and alternate glyphs
- Insert special characters
- Glyphs panel overview
- Replace characters with alternate glyphs
- OpenType panel overview
- Use ligatures and contextual alternates
- Use swashes, titling alternates, or stylistic alternates
- Add stylistic sets to selected text
- Insert white space and break characters
- Snap to Glyph options
- Snap with glyph guides
- Snap glyph to angles, anchor points, or text area
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Create and manage artboards
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Organize and manage artboards
- Use the artboard context menu
- Cut, copy, and paste artboards
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- Apply colors to artboards
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- Export selected artboards
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Manage layers
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Apply special effects and styles
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Automate and visualize data
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Automate actions
- Actions panel overview
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- Batch options
- Install and run scripts
- Merge data
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- Variable panel overview
- Work with variables
- Edit dynamic objects
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Visualize data
- Data sets and label options
- Create graphs
- Add graph data
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- Adjust decimal digits and column width
- Format columns, bars, and lines
- Select parts of a graph
- Change graph types
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- Combine different graph types
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- Format pie graphs
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Automate actions
- Troubleshoot
Create process color swatches
Last updated on
Oct 27, 2025
Learn how to create custom process color swatches in Adobe Illustrator for consistent use across your designs.
Select a color from the Color panel.
Tip
You can also select color using the Color Picker or by selecting an artwork with the color you want.
Select Window > Swatches to open the Swatches panel and select the New Swatch icon.
In the New Swatch dialog box that appears, select Global if you want the swatch to be a global color and set additional swatch options as desired.
Select OK.
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