You can modify the appearance of a spot color, print and compare the color reproduction of colors with hues and lightness levels that vary slightly from the original spot color, and choose which color to use.

1. In Spot Pro, with a Group selected, click to select a custom spot color, and click Edit to open the Spot Pro color editor.
2. Click Variations.

   The active controls for changing the color in eight hue directions are the color arrows. The color variations arrows (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, orange, violet, black, white) show the direction of the color hue and lightness shift from the center patch. Clicking on an arrow adjusts the targeted color in the direction of the arrow.

   Note: If you inadvertently click a color arrow more than once, further spot color variations are created based on the new color. Click the Reset icon () to return to the original spot color and its variations.
3. To control the magnitude of variation per click and in the printed variations patches, move the slider closer to Fine (for smaller variation) or Coarse (for larger variation). The default setting is in the middle.
4. To print a test page, do one of the following:
   • With a single spot color selected, click Print on the Variations tab.
   • To print variations for multiple spot colors, ctrl-click or cmd-click to select multiple spot colors, click Print in the menu bar, and then select Variations.
   • To print variations for a spot color group, click the More icon (three vertical dots) next to the group, then select Print > Variations.

   Matching spot colors accurately on a monitor is very difficult. Always print a test page to get the proper color match.

5. Select the media or substrate source.
6. Select the number of variations, either 25 or 49.
7. Select Measure Variations Patches if you want to use your measurement device to measure the variations swatches. This allows you to complement the visual editing process with quantitative analysis, or simply use the measurements to pick the variation patch resulting in the smallest ∆E.
8. If you have more than one spot color selected, adjust the Fine or Coarse slider to control the magnitude of variation in the neighboring patches. For more information see step 3.
9. Click OK.
10. If you selected Measure Variation Patches, follow the on-screen instructions to calibrate your measurement device, if necessary, and measure the patches.
11. Identify the spot color patch with the best color reproduction and do one of the following:
    • Type the color values of the corresponding patch in the Color Definition tab.
    • Enter the patch ID of the spot color patch from the variations page into the Printed Variation ID box in the Variations tab to automatically populate the device values for that patch.
      Note: This works as long as the variations page was printed in the same session of Spot Pro. If you quit Spot Pro, the variation values for the spot colors are discarded.