CorelDRAW Help | Printing colors accurately

Quick links to procedures on this page:

•

To specify a rendering intent for printing

Printing colors accurately

CorelDRAW allows you to manage colors when printing to ensure accurate color reproduction. You can print the document with the document colors settings applied or you can choose alternate color settings only for printing. You can also print a document using the color proofing settings that you previously specified in the Color proof settings docker.

In addition, you can choose a rendering intent to effectively interpret the out-of-gamut colors when printing. The rendering intent that you choose depends on the graphic content of the document.

For more information about color management, see Using color management.

Notes for GDI printers

GDI printers support only two color spaces: RGB and Grayscale. If your document contains colors from multiple color spaces, for example RGB, CMYK, and spot colors, you must convert all the colors to RGB or Grayscale before printing.

You can determine if a printer is a GDI printer by clicking File Print and choosing a printer from the Printer list box. If the PostScript tab does not appear at the top of the dialog box, the selected printer is a GDI printer.

The following table describes different ways of managing color when printing to a GDI printer.

How to	In the Print dialog box
Print the document and preserve the RGB or Grayscale colors	Click the Color tab, and choose the appropriate color mode from the Output colors as list box.
Print the document with original colors	Click the Color tab, and choose the document color profile from the Document profile area of the Correct colors using color profile list box.
Print the document and convert the document colors to the printer colors	Choose the printer color profile from the Correct colors using color profile list box.

Notes for PostScript printers

Most PostScript printers support the use of multiple color spaces in a document. For example, a document can contain colors from multiple colors spaces, such as RGB, CMYK, and Grayscale.

The following table describes different ways of managing color when printing to a PostScript printer.

How to	In the Print dialog box
Print the document with the original colors	Click the Color tab, and choose Native from the Output colors as list box.
Print a document that contains multiple color modes using one color mode	Click the Color tab, and choose a color mode from the Output colors as list box. If the printer supports only one color mode, you can control the color conversion within CorelDRAW.
Print a document that contains only one color mode	Click the Color tab, and choose the color profile from the Output color as list box and from the Correct colors using color profile list box.

To specify color settings for printing

1 .

Click File

Print.

2 .

Click the Color tab.

3 .

Enable the Use document color settings option.

If you selected a PostScript printer, you can choose one of the following options from the Color conversion performed by list box:

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CorelDRAW — lets the application perform the color conversion

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(selected printer) — lets the selected printer perform the color conversion (This option is only available for PostScript printers.)

4 .

Choose a color model from the Output colors as list box.

This allows you to merge all document colors into a specific color model when printing.

You can also
Convert spot colors to process colors	Enable the Convert spot colors to check box. If you selected Native from the Output colors as list box, you need to select a color mode from the list box.
Choose a color profile for correcting colors when printing to a specific printer	Choose a color profile from the Correct colors using color profiles list box. This option is available only for certain color models.
Retain the color values associated with the selected color model	Enable the Preserve (color model) numbers check box.

To print using color proofing settings

1 .

Click File

Print.

2 .

Click the Color tab.

3 .

Enable the Use color proof settings option to apply the color settings that are defined in the Color proof settings docker.

If you want to correct the proof colors, you can choose a color profile from the Correct colors using color profile list box.

4 .

Click Print.

To specify a rendering intent for printing

1 .

Click File

Print.

2 .

Click the Color tab.

3 .

From the Rendering intent list box, choose one of the following options:

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Relative colorimetric — for producing proofs on printers, without preserving the white point

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Absolute colorimetric — for preserving the white point and proofing

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Perceptual — for a variety of images, especially bitmaps and photographs

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Saturation — for vector graphics and for preserving highly saturated colors (lines, text, and solid-colored objects, such as charts)

Not all suite components documented in this Help are available in our Trial, Academic, and OEM versions. Unavailable components may include Corel applications, product features, third-party utilities, and extra content files.

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