CMY Plates in InDesign

StealYourMac

New member
Is there anyway to have the CMY plates not show up in the print dialog box within InDesign.
I teach a preflight and file repair class and students must constantly check their plates to ensure that colors have been converted to spot properly. I remember in the days of Quark, only the colors you have used in your document appear in the print dialog so you know, even before outputting (to paper or pdf) what plates would output. Now that CMY are constantly in the InDesign print dialog. You have to either print (to paper or pdf) to view the plates to ensure CMY is not being utilized. I know you can just turn the color off but it still needs to be checked to make sure nothing is appearing on the page.

So my question again is can only the colors you have utilized in your document appear in the print dialog without the annoying reoccurrence of CMY showing up when their not being used?

Thanks
 
In short, no, you can't prevent CMYK from being listed in the print dialog.

You don't need to print (to paper or PDF) in order to determine if CMY are being used. Instead, use Separation Preview to view the individual inks in InDesign. From the Window menu select Separation Preview from the Output submenu. The keyboard shortcut is Shift+F6. There is also an option in the pallet for ink limit, another important variable your students should be checking.
 
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For our spot color jobs I've set up print presets
in InDesign that have CMYK turned off, so only
spot colors show as active when printing the document.
Not exactly what you're after, but it works nicely for us.
 
I've also noticed that "most" of the time, even though the CMY plates are selected to print, they won't if it would result in in a blank plate.
 

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