Fixing the "inconsistent color" error

Situation

During printing or updating of a book, you get a message that one or more color definitions are inconsistent.

Reason

When you update a book, Frame takes a look at the colors in the first file and compares the rest of the files to it. When Frame detects certain differences, it will issue this error.

Fix 1

A file has one or more colors than other files in the book. The solution is to either import that file's colors into the rest of the book, or to delete the unneeded colors from the file(s) that contain them. I prefer the latter approach, only because I like myfiles to be as bare-boned as possible.

Fix 2

A file has a color defined differently. Every color has a specific definition: it has a name, a mix of certain percents of CMYK or RGB, and so on as you see in the Define Color dialog. But a color also has print settings associated with it, such as the screen angle, and whether it prints as a spot color, a separation, or not at all.

In this fix, you copy the colors from a good file into the rest of the book.

  1. Open one file of the book that has the colors as you want them. This should also be a file that does not have extra colors you don't use.
  2. File > Import the colors into the rest of the book. Take the overrides option.

If that does not fix it, then the problem may have been that the screen angle or separatoin/spot settings are different. Try these steps. In this fix you print a PostScript file with separations.

  1. Make sure you've tried earlier fixes.
  2. Print a PostScript file, choosing to make separations.
  3. Specify the separations explicitly. If you want to do the defaults, place the base CMYK in the Process column and white in the don't print column. Other colors should do in their proper colums, depending on if they are defined as spot or separation.
  4. Print a PostScript file; skip over any error warnings and let it print. (You don't need the file, so delete it when you're done.) Note: You can save print time by printing only the odds or evens.

Hopefully that will fix it.