Swatches not visable

[Pannn]

Firstly I am not an Illustrator 10 user, but have been helping someone trouble shoot a problem on their Mac. Apparantely when you click on Windows / Swatch Library a little window is supposed to appear at the side listing the available swatches. In her case the window is totally empty. The set up of her Mac is totally identical to another in the room, this works fine. What am I missing? Thanks

 

[jmgalvin]

Swatches in ILL are not like those of things like Word, etc. You add colors as necessary.

When the Swatches window is opened, click on the little triangle at the upper right of that window. That will take you to various libraries to open and to select colors from.

At the bottom of the Swatches window, you'll see a bunch of little boxes. As you put the mouse over them, they'll show anmes like "show all swatches", "show color swatches" etc. Make sure that one of the boxes is highlighted. Show All would probably be easiest as a start.

 

[Pannn]

Yes I tried that, but no swatches or libraries show up, period. Could it be something missing from OS X rather than illustrator?

 

[tperkins]

Goto your Illustrator folder on your harddrive and in "Preset>Swatches" is where Illustrator keeps all it's swatches that you find by going to "Windows>Swatches" in the program. It sounds like there are no swatches in that folder that Illustrator looks to. If you are on a network copy the swatches from that folder on the other computer that works to the one you are having a problem with and restart Illustrator, it should work then.

Tony Perkins

 

[jmgalvin]

Pannn: tperkins is absolutely right. the user must be missing the various swatch libraries - there are a LOT of them.

 

[Pannn]

OK I looked in this folder and there are MANY swatches in that folder, but none of them show up in the program. I have tried deleting and reinstalling Ill but still the same issue. I will be the first to admit I am FAR from an expert with this program... there is prob. some setting I don't know about or something insanely simple like that.

 

[jmgalvin]

did you go to the Swatches Window - top triangle - and select Open Swatch library and select one. You should then get a new ILL wndow with a bunch of color squares. You would select on of these and it would then appear in the Swatches window. The libraries themselves don't open in the SWatches window.

If you did the above and could not get a library to open, try quitting ILL. Then go to Hard Drive/User/Library/Prefeences/Adobe Illustrator Settings/Adobe Illustrator Prefs. Trash that file. Launch Ill and see what happens.

Important here: ONLY treash the Prefs file, nothing else.

 

[Pannn]

Tried that... still the same error.

 

[jmgalvin]

Try going to Applications/Adobe Illustrator/Presets Localized/Swatches. Double click one of the Pantone libraries. That should open an ILL doc with some info about Pantone. The Swatches window will be full of swatches (as long as Show all swatches or Show color swatches (2 left bottom buttons on swatches palette) is active.

If that works then go to the arrow on top of swatches window and Open Swatch library and pick another one,

If the above do not work, the only thing I can think of at this point is to Trash the whole Adobe Illustrator Settings folder from the Users Library/Preferences. Then trash the Adobe Illustrator folder in the Applications folder and reinstall. It's important to trash that Library/Adobe Illustrator Settings from the user/Library before reinstalling.