If you’re like me you do a lot of patch designs in Illustrator. When doing this you use the standard Adobe color pallet. You can certainly make designs with the default one, but then you need to change the colors in your digitizing software to see the final colors. This article will show you how to import a CSV into Adobe products.
Download the Importer Script
Importing colors into Illustrator can be done one-by-one. Obviously that’s not very nice when you have thousands of colors to add. The link below will allow you to import colors in bulk from a csv file, which we also provide.
I like to move the file into the Scripts directory of my installation. This makes it easier to access. It’s not necessary to do, but requires less clicks and time. So when you download it, go to the Presets folder and move it to the scripts folder.
Illustrator 2019: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CC 2019\Presets\en_US\Scripts
Once it’s placed in the folder you can now open, or restart, Illustrator. You should then see the script appear in the File>Scripts Menu.
How to get Thread Charts
If you don’t have the thread chart there are several ways to get them.
The first is to use our resource library and download our premade ones. We formatted them for import into Illustrator, and some are for importing into other software.
A second method it to reach out to your thread manufacture and ask if they have a .csv file with the colors. This option is unlikely as we tried and didn’t get any help. Most likely you will need to reformat the document for import. We can help with that.
The last method is the most painful one. This is how we converted some of them. You can create a spreadsheet in Excel and manually put the color code values in. This takes along time, but if done correctly you can re-import it faster.
Browse our Thread Chart Library
We have prepared several thread charts that are available for download from our Google Drive folder. When you’re there, browse to the Adobe Illustrator folder and download the charts you would like.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Cgj37chko_6oaC-ImuUlrCrjmD5jUAf1?usp=sharing
If there are thread charts you want that are missing, and they exist on https://threadconverter.com, send us a message on Facebook and we’ll get one exported for you.
Making your Own CSV
Making your own is a pretty straightforward process. It involves setting up a spreadsheet with four columns. The first will be the name of the color, followed by the individual values for the RGB color space in their own columns. There can’t be any headers.
| 61001 – Bright White | 244 | 244 | 248 |
| 61002 – Soft White | 245 | 238 | 242 |
| 61005 – Black | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 61011 – Steel Gray | 150 | 150 | 149 |
Once you have the colors input you can export the spreadsheet as a .csv and save it to your computer.
If you need to rip colors from a web browser, I use Chrome with the Eye Dropper extension.
Importing the Thread Chart
To import the thread chart you will need to create a new document or open an existing on in Illustrator. Once you’re there you can import your CSV via File>Scripts>csv import for Adobe Illustrator. You will now see it in the Swatches as a swatch group. You can then click the Swatch Group and use the options menu to Save Swatch Library as ASE.