How to record specific color swatches as an action in Adobe Illustrator

Question

I have a file that contains of many objects which can be images, vectors or clipping masks. But all the objects are grouped with the same specific color swatches. Let's say the color is CMYK Cyan.

I want to select all of CMYK Cyan color and move them to New Layer (Layer 2), change the CMYK Cyan color to another color (CMYK Red) and give it an outline preview (by ctrl+click on "eye" icon in layer the menu).

Here are the steps I tried to record in the action:

1. Copy objects grouped with swatches
2. Create new document
3. Paste
4. Use Magic Wand Tool (W) to select CMYK Cyan color
5. Create new layer
6. Move "Indicates Selected Art" (it should be all CMYK Cyan color) to Layer 2
7. Change CMYK Cyan to CMYK Red

The recorded results missing step 4 and step 6. The question is, how to record step 4 in an action?

Actually this question is only about step number 4, but I would be very grateful if someone could also tell me how to record step number 6.

Answer 1

The Magic Wand tool won't work as an Action in Illustrator.

The magic wand tool doesn't record in an Action because it needs to be used on a specific object. So for example, if you wanted to run your action on another image, Illustrator would not know which shape to choose as the selection basis.

Illustrator's Magic Wand isn't like the one in Photoshop. It can't select any specific colours. All it can do is search for the same fill colour/stroke colour/stroke weight/opacity/blending mode as the object it is used on.

One possible solution which will record as an Action, is to select one filled shape first, and then do Select > Same > Fill color. When you want to use your Action, you will of course need to manually select one filled shape before you play it back.

I'm not entirely sure how practical this will be for your particular Action. What you want to do may not be possible with actions. It might be better to look at the possibility of writing an actual script.

Answer 2

While you can't set a swatch color via actions, you can set the fill/stroke color of a selected object or objects.

Simply input numbers in the Color Panel while the action is recording....

Now, each input into the panel is going to create a new action step (at least in CS6 and earlier CC versions - I don't know if this is still the case in bleeding-edge CC versions).

So, for the above CMYK color there's...

• a step for the Cyan
• a step for the Magenta,
• a step for the Yellow
• a step for the Black.

However, the final Black step will have all the values. So after the action is done recording you can go into the Actions Panel and merely delete the 3 unnecessary steps. This leaves you with 1 step that sets the color value.

Works with RGB too, just has 3 steps rather than 4.