You know those little Illustrator discoveries that make you wonder, 'Why didn't I know this sooner?' Well, I had one of those moments recently, and I had to share it! If you're like me, you manually type out colour swatch values with a little square or circle filled with the colour on your artboard.
First, open your Swatches panel. (Window > Swatches if you can't find it.)
Hold down the Command key (Mac) or Ctrl key (Windows) and click on each of the colour swatches you want to create info for. Select all the swatches you need!
With your swatches selected, look for the hamburger menu (those three little lines) in the top right corner of the Swatches panel. Click it, and you'll see a dropdown menu. Find and click 'Create Swatch Info.'
A new dialog box will pop up, and this is where you can customise how your colour info is displayed. You can choose what information you want included (RGB, CMYK, Hex, etc.), how you want it arranged (horizontally or vertically stacked), the spacing between the cards and the size of each card.
Once you've set your preferences, click 'Create.' Illustrator automatically generates cards with all the colour values you need, right there on your artboard. No more manual typing!
You can further tweak the cards using the Control bar (if you don’t see it, go to Window > Control). This lets you make quick adjustments without having to go back to the Create Swatch Info dialog.
It's one of those things that seems so simple once you know it, but it makes a huge difference in your workflow, doesn't it?!
Happy designing!
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