Confidence Strip

Add a printer's colour test strip beside your artwork, plus samples of the job's spot colours. On a long large-format run it keeps every print head firing, and the samples give you a record of the colours actually printed.

See it in the shop · Version 1.1.8 · Needs PowerScripts 3.8.32 or later

Open the PowerScripts panel (Window > Extensions > PowerScripts) and choose Confidence Strip from the Tools scripts. The script has two tabs: Options and Colors.

1. Open the artboard you're about to print.
2. On Options, choose a Strip, for example CMYK.
3. Choose a Position (Left or Right).
4. Press Add Confidence Strips.

A thin bar for each colour runs down the side of the artboard, just outside your artwork, and the artboard is widened to take it.

• Strip: which strip to add. Each strip is a group of colours set up on the Colors tab, so you can have one per printer. Two come ready made: CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and CMYK+OrBl (with orange and blue, for printers that have them).
• Artwork Scale: if your artwork is drawn smaller than it will print (for example at 10% for a big banner), choose the same scale here so the strip prints at the right size.
• Position: put the strip down the Left or Right side of the artboard.
• Add Spot Color Swatches: add a labelled sample of every spot colour in the document at the bottom of the strip. “PANTONE ” is left off the labels to keep them short.
• Resize Artboard: widen the artboard so the strip is inside it and prints with the job.
• Add Confidence Strips: does it.

The list of colours in every strip. Each row is one bar:

• Group Name: the strip it belongs to. All rows with the same group name make one strip, and that name shows in the Strip list.
• Color Name: the name of the colour, for example DeviceCyan.
• Color Formula: the colour, for example CMYK:10,0,0,0.

Add a row for each print head your printer has, or a new group for each printer.

1. On Colors, add one row per ink, all with the same Group Name, for example Roland 8 colour.
2. Give each a Color Name your RIP can map to a print head, and a Color Formula.
3. Go back to Options: your new strip is in the Strip list.

1. Tick Add Spot Color Swatches and press Add Confidence Strips.
2. After printing, cut the samples off and keep them with the job, or read them with a spectrophotometer.

• Use light tints (such as 10%) in your strip colours: you can see at a glance that each one printed from the right head, without wasting ink.
• In your RIP, map each strip colour to its print head. A lighter shade in the file makes it easy to see the mapping has been done.
• Undo (Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) removes the strip and puts the artboard back.

• The strip is added to the active artboard only.
• Only spot colours are added as samples, not process colours.

• 1.1.8
  • Fixed: the strip's own colours are no longer drawn again as document swatches.
  • Improved: general bug fixes, reliability and speed.
• 1.1.7: Updated for PowerScripts 3.8.32.
• 1.1.6: Updated for the new version of PowerScripts.
• Older changes: PowerScripts Release Notes