Faster way to add a copied graphic

[Tim Murphy]

Hey Guys,
I'm after a little help setting up an action for copied graphics.

We produce exceptionally long PVC Banners.
We have been using an action that will place eyelet marks along the banner edges at variable distances.
The graphic that is added is a small yellow dot with a black outline. This covers any colour combination on the banner itself.

Unfortunately when the eyelets do not hit the mark bang on, it is visible and noticeable.
We would like to change to an action where we have the choice of choosing from a range of different colours for the dots.

So far the options seem to be to create 8 new actions, each of which has a different copied graphic.
Or secondly, to have a file open with all the colour options available, then use the grabbed graphics function to pick the most suitable.

I was hoping for a streamlined action where the different graphics are just available in a variable list when the action is run.
Is this even possible?

Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Tim

[Tim Murphy]

Another possible option.
Assign the eyelets to a different layer?
Then change the colours within the layer?

[JimmyHartington]

Another option could be to use a variable set.
Add the user the option to choose the color.
Based on the choose the variable set set yes/no variables.
These are used in a preflight profile to run or not run the action list for the choosen color.

You could have a action list which places the eyelets, where the graphic is designed with Spotcolornames which are generic. Like EyeletColor01, EyeletColor02 etc.
Then the other action lists could be just to change these specific colors and nothing else.
This way you need only to maintain one action list for the placement. Others are just for the color change.

[Tim Murphy]

Thanks Jimmy.
I'll give that a shot and get back with the result.

Cheers
Tim

[freddyp]

Yet another possibility:

• create a variable set with 9 variables, one text variable with a dropdown list for all 8 options and 8 rule-based boolean variables. Define the rule-based variables in this way: if the dropdown variable is equal to x then the value is true, else it is false

• add all 8 copied graphics variations as action lists to a preflight profile

• make the checkbox activation of the action lists variable and assign each one with the matching variable from the list of 8

When you now run the action list you will only see 1 variable, the dropdown list. You choose a value and the corresponding boolean variable will be true, the 7 others will be false, and only that action list will run.

[loicaigon]

I would like to offer another possible approach.

If you have a PDF file that contains all grommets per color:


Then you can use variable to set the page to import:


And you can set variables so that you can "name" the page


And on running, simply select the "color":


And teh result:


Only downside is that you need to have colors set in the template file. But I don't think that's a huge effort if the the color set is limited.

[loicaigon]

There is also maybe another approach where you would place a base grommet using a dummy spot and you could remap the spot to a specific color.
But the management of the variable and make it the actual color might be a bit more complex.