Formatting your document so that the number of colour pages registered in your uploaded manuscript matches the number of pages that actually contain colour elements can be trickier than it seems. Our system scans your document for colour, meaning that whenever a page contains a character, word, or image that is set up in a way that requires coloured ink to print, it will count as a colour page.
The method for identifying the page(s) causing our system to identify too many colour pages in your manuscript varies depending on the program you’ve used to create it. As such, you’ll find two sections below. One is focussed on the usual word processing programs like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, and LibreOffice. The other deals with professional formatting programs like Adobe InDesign.
For manuscripts formatted using Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or LibreOffice
The most common reason for an incorrect number of colour pages being detected in files created by these programs is that they are generally very sloppy when it comes to categorising colour elements. This is mainly due to the fact that they make no distinction between ‘black’ and ‘rich black’. The difference is that when printing the former, only black ink is used, but when printing the latter, a mix of black and other colours is used.
You may have noticed that when printing black & white documents at home, the coloured ink cartridges will still deplete over time. This is due to the fact that Word isn’t telling the printer to print these documents in ‘black’, but in ‘rich black’. The printer will then use coloured ink for those documents.
There are various ways of resolving this issue, depending on what type of file you upload to our platform. Check which of the sections below is applicable to your situation.
If you created and uploaded a PDF
If you’ve created and uploaded your own PDF, there’s a big chance that all the pages with text, images, or other content (even page numbers) are being counted as colour pages.
This is due to the problem described above: all the text is listed as ‘rich black’ in the PDF. This causes our platform to identify these pages as requiring colour ink to print. This results in the total number of colour pages going up.
Naturally, this is not a great situation to be in, as it makes printing your book unnecessarily expensive. Unfortunately, it’s also a rather difficult problem to solve, as most word processing software doesn’t give you the option to deactivate ‘rich black’. As such, if you’re experiencing this problem, we strongly advise you to upload your manuscript as a Word document instead.
When doing so, our platform can detect and convert any pages set to ‘rich black’ back to regular black. This ought to bring the number of colour pages down considerably.
Please note: If you use this method to fix your manuscript, make sure to check it thoroughly for any formatting issues resulting from the conversion
If you uploaded a Word file (.doc or .docx) directly
There are two situations that might cause an incorrect number of colour pages being registered when uploading a Word file to our platform:
- All pages are being registered as colour pages
- Part of a page or pages are being registered as colour pages, resulting in a higher total than expected
In the first case, the issue is probably that you have some element(s) on every page of your document that are in colour; this can be a word, a dash, an icon, or even a page number. Images, even if they are monochrome, are always categorised as colour elements by Word. This means that if you have a recurring image in your manuscript (such as a decorative icon in the footer for instance), then this is most likely the culprit. The same applies for lines and other shapes or drawings that you make in Word.
If you do have colour pages in your manuscript, but the number shown in the platform is much higher than it should be, there are a number of possible reasons:
Images
The most common reason for an unexpectedly high colour page count is related to the use of images in your manuscript. Word classifies all images as colour elements, even if they’re monochrome. That means even if your images are black and white, Word sees them as being in colour. Applying Word’s monochrome filters will not have any effect on this. Simply put, if you’re using Word and want to include images, having colour pages is unavoidable.
Lines, arrows and other shapes created in Word
Just like with images, Word often classifies shapes as colour elements, even if you have selected a grey or some other ambiguous colour. Check if your shapes are actually set to ‘black’ and not ‘dark grey’ or some other colour that looks very much like it. If not, make them black and remove any outlines or shadow effects; this usually fixes the issue.
Text that looks black but isn’t
Sometimes, the text in your document will look black while actually being dark grey. We recommend selecting all the text that should be black in your document and manually selecting black as the colour in Word.
For manuscripts formatted in Adobe InDesign or other dedicated software
When formatting your book using a dedicated formatting program, you have complete control over the colours being used. As such, it’s important to use the right settings.
Set your colour model to CMYK
It might be self-evident, but make sure that your file is set to use CMYK colours, not RGB. CMYK is the colour model used for print documents, whereas RGB is the standard for digital documents.
Make sure that the text is 100% K (Key)
When adding text to your file, make sure that it’s set to 100% K (Key) and that the values for C (Cyan), M (Magenta), Y (Yellow) are all at 0. If these values are not all 0, then the text will be seen as a colour element, as you’ve technically indicated that colour (however miniscule the amount) is to be used when printing it.
If you want to make your text grey, make sure that you’re using ‘K’ to do so while keeping the values for C, M and Y at 0%.
Images
If you want to add B/W images to your document, it’s crucial that the image being used actually is in B/W before you add it to InDesign.
To do this, open your image with an image editing program like Photoshop and set it to ‘Grayscale’ instead of ‘RGB’ or ‘CMYK’. Afterwards, save the image as a JPG or TIFF, and then add it to your manuscript in InDesign.
Vector images
Vectors require a special procedure. Open the image in a vector program like Illustrator. Set the colour model to CMYK (or Grayscale) and make sure that the colour is drawn exclusively from the ‘K’ value. Once this is done you can import the vector to InDesign.
PDF export
When your manuscript is finished, you need to export it as a PDF. Choose the PDF/X-3:2002 option when exporting.
Post-export review
If you have access to Adobe Acrobat Professional, you can check the colour usage in your PDF with ‘Output Preview’. This allows you to see exactly what kind of ink will be used for whatever section you point your cursor at. This means you can easily check elements you’re unsure of by hovering over them with your cursor, to see if they’re actually in B/W. If you see C, M, or Y values in the Output Preview screen when doing so, then you’ll know something’s not right with that particular element, and that you’re going to be seeing unwanted colour pages when uploading your manuscript as a result.