InDesign’s Paper and Registration Colors

P.M. wrote:

Many InDesign users — especially those who are converts from QuarkXPress — wonder why there is no “White” color in the Swatches palette. Some go so far as to make their own 0% CMYK swatch and name it White. However, there’s typically no need: That’s what the Paper color is there for. When you apply the Paper color swatch to an object, you’re telling InDesign to knock out everything beneath it, all the way down to the paper beneath.

One nice thing about the Paper color: It’s editable! For example, if you know you’re going to print on some canary-yellow paper, you can edit the Paper color to roughly approximate that color. This is not a substitute for proper soft proofing (getting an ICC profile for your printing conditions and using it in the View > Proof Setup > Custom dialog box), but it works in a quick-and-dirty kind of way.

As for why you can’t delete the swatches that have brackets around them: Well, to quote the great words of the greatest sages: “I have no idea.” I’ve certainly never had a need nor desire to delete Paper or Black. I can definitely see a need to remove the Registration swatch, though.

Registration is “all colors.” That is, if you color something 100% Registration, it’ll show up as 100% black, 100% yellow, 100% spot colors (if you’re using spots), and so on. The only time you need the Registration color is if you’re making your own registration/trim marks. That’s pretty rare.

But too many people apply Registration to text or objects when they mean to use [Black] because the two are right next to each other and look identical. Big problems. So here’s a trick (repeated here): While no documents are open, drag the Registration color to the bottom of the palette. (Did you know you can reorder swatches by dragging them around?) Now it’ll be down at the bottom for all future documents you create, and you’ll be less likely to click on it accidentally.