Working with Color Palettes

Overview

The Color Palettes panel lets you manage reusable swatches and quickly apply them as fill or stroke colors. Palettes are stored as .axpal files (Axialis format), with optional import from .aco (Adobe Color) files.

Open the Color Palettes Panel

You can show or hide the panel from the main menu:

View ‣ Color Palettes Panel

The panel is dockable and can be placed anywhere in the workspace.

Palette Commands

Open the palette menu and use the following commands:

Add Palette: Creates a new empty palette and saves it as an .axpal file.
Remove Palette: Deletes the selected palette file (not available for the default palette).
Rename Palette: Renames the palette and its .axpal file.
Sort Swatches: Sorts swatches by Hue, then by brightness if the hue is identical.
Add Icon Colors: Adds all colors currently used in the icon (fill and stroke), removing duplicates and sorting by Hue.
Recolor Icon: Recolors the current icon using only colors from the selected palette. Each source color is replaced with the visually closest swatch color.
Load Palette…: Imports a palette file from anywhere on disk (.axpal or .aco). Imported palettes are saved as new .axpal files in the palettes folder. If a palette name already exists, an index is added automatically.
Save Palette…: Exports the selected palette to any location as an .axpal file.

Note

.aco palettes are read-only once loaded. Import them to create an editable .axpal copy.

Working with Swatches

Selecting and Applying Colors

Left-click a swatch to set the fill color.
Right-click a swatch to set the stroke color.

The Control Bar updates to reflect the chosen color.

Rename a Swatch

Double-click a swatch to rename it.

Add a Swatch

Click New Swatch to add a color to the selected palette.

Delete a Swatch

Click Delete Swatch to remove the currently selected swatch.
Or drag a swatch outside the list to delete it.

Reorder Swatches

Drag and drop swatches within the grid to change their order. A guide line shows where the swatch will be inserted.

Add Color to Palette from the Control Bar

When you open the fill or stroke color menu in the Control Bar, a command Add Color to Palette appears. It adds the current color to the selected palette using the HTML color string as the swatch name. This command is disabled for None, CurrentColor, or Gradient.

Recolor the Whole Icon with the Selected Palette

Two commands are available:

Icon ‣ Recolor with Palette
Color Palettes panel menu –> Recolor Icon

Both commands apply the same algorithm:

Every fill/stroke color in the current icon is evaluated.
The closest swatch color in the selected palette is found.
The icon is rewritten using only palette colors.