Created Date: 16 Mar, 2022 14:43
Last Modifed Date: 16 Mar, 2022 14:43

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; and to Harlequin Core but not Harlequin MultiRIP.

The Harlequin Core SDK supports many color output formats. Requests for different color output formats are performed using the setpagedevice operator. Changes to the output format are matched using the ColorantFamilies key in the SeparationDetails sub-dictionary supplied to the setpagedevice operator.

A Colorant Dictionary is a definition of a particular fixed set of data channels, their properties and behaviors on a printing device, and the names of the inks, varnishes, primers, and so on, that are represented by those channels. A printing device may have many different fixed sets of channels. A printing device may also support extra variable channels for spot colors and technical separations. A Colorant Family is a set of Colorant Dictionaries, possibly for different output devices, that define the same fixed sets of channels. In the Harlequin Core SDK ColorantFamilies should be set using a setpagedevice call during the boot-up process, for example in the Sys\HqnOEM file. It may also be set or overridden in a later configuration file or in the %config% device PostScript language. The Harlequin Core SDK has a default setting for ColorantFamilies that recognizes DeviceCMYK, DeviceGray, and DeviceRGB color spaces. However it is recommended that the customer supply their own definition in place of the default.

When matching colorant families from pagedevice requests, the entries found must match the Plugin and DeviceType pagedevice values. The Plugin and DeviceType names are derived from their use in Harlequin MultiRIP. They have no semantic meaning in the Harlequin Core SDK; they are just keys used for selection of the colorant entries.

When matching pagedevice requests, the RIP builds a list of colorants from the pagedevice SeparationColorNames key, augmented with the names of the default colorants from the process color space. This set of colors are matched against the colorant names for each colorant set dictionary in the DeviceTypes array (see below). The most-specific match (matching the largest number of color names) for the specified Plugin and DeviceType is chosen as the output colorant family.

For more information about the SeparationDetails dictionary see the Extensions Manual.