Knowledge Base Installation

To change a color’s information or properties in AI, follow the steps below.

1: Open the color in AI Swatches panel.
2: Double click on the color chip or select the color and choose Swatch Options from the menu at the top right corner.
3: When you get the Swatch Options panel open, there are a few items that can change based on what is needed. The swatch can be named, the type can be changed and the color mode can be changed as well. Make changes and hit OK to save it.

*If you have added this color to Palette Manager already, you will need to delete it out and re-add this swatch to update the information.

**If you are working with the color in RS, we recommend using RGB Mode. RS does not handle LAB colors and will change the value of a CMYK color to RGB.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

To create a color range, eye drop the color you want to change, making sure that color is present in the fill box. On the range tab inside the Color Range module, click ADD. Next, choose how many chips you want to generate, the step size or the difference between each chip value, and hue/ saturation / brightness options. Hit generate to actually make the range. From there, you can match one of those chips back to Pantone by eye dropping a generated chip, opening up a Pantone .ase palette and hitting match on the match tab.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

The screen resolution of a desktop or laptop monitor may vary from the resolution of a smart tablet, causing plugins to alter their appearance. On a PC, try changing the screen resolution option for “text & apps” to 100%, rather than the recommended 125%. You can access this option by going to settings- display. Next, inside Adobe Illustrator, go to (illustrator-preferences) on a Mac or (edit-Preferences) on a PC. Choose “interface” and then slide the UI scaling slider to Medium.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

When a color is being added to Palette Manager, it may look like it’s being added but then does not show up in the list. When this happens, there are a couple of things to check.

1: Make sure in the AI toolbar that the Fill is on top of the Stroke. The Fill may have the correct color in it at the time of adding the color, but if the Stroke is on top, it will try to add that color instead.

2: Make sure you have a connection to the server. In most cases, the location that Palette Manager needs to access is on a server.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

There are known issues between CC2020 and the MAC Catalina OSX currently that causes Illustrator to close when using the Knit Draw Stitches tool. If Ai is crashing when you use it in CC2020, you will have to backdate your Illustrator to CC2019 in order for you to use knit until the issue can be resolved. Below are the steps to backdate to CC2019:

1. Open up the Creative Cloud app and make sure you are in “All Apps” on the left side
2. Look for Illustrator and click the “…” button next to the “Open” button
3. Click “Other Versions”
4. Look for version 23.1.1 and click Install.
5. You can keep CC2020 installed while you have CC2019 installed 
6. You will have to run the DesignPro 5.1.0 installer again, so that this time it will go into CC2019.

1. Select the new art pieces. Using the Magic Wand or the Select > Same menu in Illustrator can be handy to make sure that all pieces of the new artwork are selected.
2. Go to the Colorways tab in the Colorist tool and click the Add button under the Art Section.

• For Repeat art, select all the new motifs
• For Weave art, select only the new color bars. Do not select the pattern or fill bars
• For Knit, use the Knit Selection tool and select the new stitches

3. It will create new color chips next to the existing ones on the page.
4. Click through each of the colorways to update them with the new artwork.
5. Recolor the new art by selecting the new color chip and selecting a color from the swatches or color picker.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

1. The first thing you can do to reduce file sizes is remove any excess and hidden strokes, handles, points and objects.
To do this, click control (PC) OR command (mac) +Y to view the file in “wire mode”. Here, you can see just how many objects and lines are floating around in the file that are hidden in regular view mode. Delete any excess mess. To release the wire view mode, click control or command +Y again.

2. Use the pathfinder tool to crop out excess data that is hidden behind a clipping mask. Select the clipping masked object and go to window > pathfinder. Click the “merge” or “crop” buttons which are the two middle icons on the bottom row of the tool.

3. Delete any swatches, brushes or symbols you are not using.

4. Save the file without a PDF compatible file.
When you save a file in illustrator, you get a save prompt with many check box options. The first one under options says “create PDF compatible file”. Make sure this is UNCHECKED. A 128 MB file went down to 56 MB just by unchecking create PDF compatible file.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

To create a textured plaid or stripe like a space dye or jaspé, the first thing you’ll want to do is draw out your plaid using solid blocks of color. If these colors are not part of your AI swatches or from an existing .ase palette, add the color into your Illustrator swatches library.

Next, open up your desired space dye or find a picture of one on google. It’s best if this image is in repeat but that’s not super important.
Place this artwork into the AI weave file.

Then, use the DesignPro raster recolor tool to recolor the space dye swatch in all of the weave bar colors. Do this twice, once with the texture going horizontally and once with it going vertically.

Finally, fill the solid color blocks of your weave with the raster-recolored space dyes, placing the horizontal direction in the weft and the vertical direction in the warp.

Please note that are you can’t run this file in colorist. To recolor, you’ll have to make raster recolors of all the desired swatches again and re-fill, then “swatch” the generated weave once that’s done.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

You can edit the repeat size of a weave by scaling the warp and weft bars or manually adjusting the color bars to meet the criteria for the new repeat size.

Scaling the Weave bars:

1. Go to the Weave Generation section at the bottom of the weave tool and find the Scale option.
2. Check off Warp and Weft if you want to scale the entire weave proportionately, or just one of them if you only need to scale one side.
3. Type in the number that you want to scale it by and hit Enter.

Manually Adjusting the Repeat Size:

• Use the Selection tool to select the Weave bars and drag them shorter or longer. Select all the warp and weft bars at once and hold Shift to scale proportionately¬†or adjust the bars one at a time. Use the Align button to re-align any bars that need it. Then hit Generate.
• Use the Element Details section of the Weave tool. Select a Weave bar and make sure Enable Length Change is checked off. Type in the new length of that bar in the highlighted field above and hit Enter. Do this for all Weave Bars, then hit Generate to update the Weave swatch.

You can show the overall repeat size of the weave by using the rulers or dimensions buttons that are available on the Design Bar. Toggle them on and off after editing the repeat size to show the new size. If you do not see the Rulers and Dimensions icons on the Design Bar, click the Aquario Design logo on the left of the Design Bar and make sure Quick Dimension Utilities are checked off.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

For any repeat, woven or knit file that needs an exported repeat swatch, go to the Export tab on Colorist in Illustrator once the art has been added to Colorist. Choose a file type, resolution and select the artwork on the document. Then hit the arrow button on the panel to see a destination window and complete the export.

This function will export the selected artwork on the file. To change the size of the artwork shown, use the Fill Size option on any of the Repeat, Weave or Knit tools to add or subtract to the image.
Please note, for Repeats use the Fill Size to show the correct amount of the repeat when the artwork is created using half drop or shift options. Doubling the height on a shift and doubling the width on a half drop will give the correct repeat tile when exported.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

This article will demonstrate steps to get your palettes to show in Palette Manager, Palette Utility, and Color Cards for Illustrator.

When Adobe is updated, Aquario Design needs to be updates as well to have the toolset available in the new version. We strongly recommend turning Adobes auto-update off to ensure you don’t run into any issues with our tools. Here is how to do it:

1. Open up the creative cloud module and click the three vertical dots on the top right of the module.
2. From there, click Preferences.
3. Inside Preferences, select the Creative Cloud option.
4. At the bottom of creative cloud, there is a section called “auto update”. If it’s checked, uncheck it.

When you want to take an update, contact the support team to update with you. We will make sure your Adobe tools and Aquario tools work seamlessly together.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

After creating a color book with the Color Range module from the Books tab, you can use the options in the Illustrator Print menu to only print out select pages at a time, or export specific artboards as individual files. To print directly from Illustrator:

1. Generate the Color Book from the Books tab on the Color Range tool
2. Go to File > Print menu in Illustrator
3. Next to Artboards under the General section, select Range.
4. Type in the range of artboards you want to print. For example: 30-40, 50
5. Click Print

If you want to print from a RIP software or another location, first export the artboards as separate files. Then:

1. Go to File > Export >Export As
2. Select “Use Artboards” and Range at the bottom of the export window
3. Type in the desired range of pages
4. Click Export

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

In Colorist, select the templates tab and then click the + button on the top right of the panel to create a new template. Once the template is created, you can then edit the logo, font, placement, sizing, etc. to make it look how you want. Once you're happy with how the template looks, click the save button in the Colorist, template panel. Save is the third button from the top, right after the X. Once the template is saved, go back to the colorway's tab in Colorist, select the colorway or colorway's that you want to present in the template, click the templates tab, select the template you want to use, and click the check button.

For more information or support, please contact support@AquarioDesign.com

When creating vector artwork to simulate a striped repeat use the Repeat tool instead of the Weave tool. The Weave tool will force you to use a warp and weft and choose solid color positions for both, this can dilute the look of your stripe. 

Use the Repeat tool in conjunction with Ai Shape tool to create blocks of color and put them into repeat. Use Colorist for colorways and presentation. 

For Further assistance please contact support@AquarioDesign.com

There are many reasons why different workflows could affect the success of our tools. Motifs with too many compound paths, heavy motifs with a lot of points, and motifs that were previously run in our tools all run the risk of causing messy behavior when using the Aquario Design Repeat and Colorist. Here are some recommended workflow improvements to help prevent any misbehavior within our tools:

1: Don’t add multiple repeats on one page

• If you are creating a print within a print, refrain from using our repeat tool until you are fully ready to create your repeat tile. If you put artwork or motifs into repeat using our tool to just make a larger repeated motif, and then want to take that motif and make it into a larger repeating print, you’ll have to expand the motifs by going to object – expand- and check fill and stroke. The motifs that were previously put into repeat carry hidden metadata that fights with the repeat and colorist tool’s code, causing the motifs to get deleted off the page.

2: Don’t start colorist until you are ready to recolor your final print

• If you need to recolor a motif, do so by using the direct select tool in illustrator rather than using colorist. Once a motif or print has been added to colorist it won’t like if you then go back and try to put that colorist motif into repeat. As noted before, the Colorist metadata will fight with repeat’s code and cause the motif to disappear.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

Sometimes print studios provide artwork that is overwhelming to the CAD artist that has to work with them. The files are huge, there are many layers and filters overlapping each other, and most of the time the print isn’t already in repeat. These best practice tips will help you get started tackling these grueling prints, and set you up for success with our tools later on. We recommend saving the print studio original file somewhere safe and leaving it alone, just in case you ever need to go back to it.

• In a duplicate file in photoshop, start combing through the layers and decide what is able to be merged down or deleted.
• • TIP: Working in a square is easier than working in a rectangle and allows for creating diagonal repeats later, so aim to make your canvas a perfect square if possible.Make sure the file is at 300 DPI, in RGB color mode and the image size is workable. Scale the file up or down depending on the desired scale of the artwork and then change the canvas size to be the closest repeat size you’re able to use.
• Once the canvas has been resized,¬†turn rulers on and pull guides out¬†to keep track of the artwork scale the entire time you’re working.
• Group the layers by what they are and name the groups (MOTIF LAYERS, COLOR OVERLAY LAYERS, TEXTURE LAYERS, etc.)
• You will then want to start putting each of those groups into repeat. (Make sure you pay attention to each layers opacity and if there are any blend modes applied. If there are, you can hide the groups you aren’t currently using, and CMND or CTRL + SHIFT+ C, CMND or CTRL+ V to copy and paste the desired group onto one flattened layer. Doing this will keep the layered group underneath in case you need to pull motifs on top of your merged layer to use later.
• Repeat this process for each of the groups.
• • Start by tiling out horizontally first; once that part is in repeat you can tile out vertically.If you have access to our RSe tools, you’ll want to enable the RSe Repeat tool now. If not, you can start to build out your repeat by copying and pasting each merged group and tiling them out.
• Tools that are great in photoshop for closing seams are the spot healing brush (bandaid icon) and patch tool (inside the bandaid icon). These tools use content aware when you draw over unwanted areas and close seams easily. You can also use the clone stamp tool and clone other parts of the artwork onto the seam to better control the look of your repeat.
• These steps should be done for each horizontal and vertical¬†seam tile in each of the layer groups.
• • Do this by selecting all layers and going to edit-define pattern.
  • Next, on the bottom middle of the photoshop layers panel there is a little circle icon that is half¬†black and half white. Click that icon and select “pattern” from the dropdown menu.
  • Change the scale to 50% and check to make sure your repeat is looking good.Once all of your groups are in repeat, put back on any blending modes and transparencies and create a pattern at 50% to check all of your repeats.
• At this point you can save the file as XXXX_repeat.psd¬†and then merge all layers down into one flattened image.
• Save this file as XXXX_cleaning.psd (only if cleaning is necessary…otherwise can do _colorways etc.) and bring that file into RS to color separate, clean and create colorways.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

You can recolor raster images using the Aquario Design Raster Recolor tool. This procedure explains how to use the Raster Recolor tool to make a pattern texture version of a color palette and implement it into Palette Manager, however the Raster Recolor tool can be used with any raster images and colors. To Use Raster Recolor:

1. Open up the desired pattern swatch in an Illustrator file. You can copy and paste the pattern from another file or place it into the Illustrator document. If it is placed in the document make sure to embed the pattern.
2. Go to Window>DesignPro>Design Bar to open the DesignBar if it’s not open already.
3. Click the Camera icon on the Design Bar to expand it and show the Raster Recolor Button that will be used.
4. Push the desired color palette into the Swatches window so that the colors will be available in the file. If the palette was made with the Palette Manager tool, use the Palette Utility tool to push the selected color palette into the swatches.
5. Use the Selection tool to select the pattern image in the document.
6. With the image selected, hold down the Control key (PC) or the Command key (Mac) on the keyboard and select the colors that you want to recolor the image with in the Illustrator Swatches window.
7. Click the Raster Recolor button (Paintbrush) on the Design Bar.
8. Click OK to the prompt.
9. A pattern swatch of the image tonally recolored in each selected color will now be added into the Illustrator Swatches window.

Once you have recolored the pattern image and a colorized version with each color from your palette, you can add the pattern swatches into a palette in Palette Manager. If you’d like to save the palette in Illustrator, delete out any unused colors from the Swatches window aside from the desired pattern swatches, and then click the Swatches options>Save Swatch Library as AI

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

1. Create the Warp and Weft Weave bars using the Add Element tool and Generate the Weave.
2. Add textures to the weave as pattern swatches in Illustrator that get placed in the color bars either by selecting the color bars and changing their color fill to the pattern swatch, or by making colorways using Colorist and using the color chips to recolor the weave to have pattern swatches.

Pattern swatches can be in raster or vector format. For further assistance please email support@AquarioDesign.com

In Colorist in Illustrator and in RS, you can use the Regions tool to present a certain size of the artwork and present multiple colorways per page. To present Regions in Illustrator:

1. Create Colorways in Colorist
2. Set the Artboard to be the desired size
3. Go to the Regions Tab
4. Use the Illustrator Rectangle tool to make a rectangle on the artwork area that you want to present.
5. Click Set in the Region tab
6. Go to the Colorist tab and select the colorways you want to present
7. Click the 4th button down on the right side of the tool.
8. It will throw a pop up message asking how many colorways per page you want to export or if you want to put them all on one page. If the colorways do not fit it will ask you to change the artboard size or the region size, or adjust the amount of colorways per page. Click OK.
9. It will make a new Illustrator file called “File name_All Colorways.ai” with the colorways and color chips on the page.

To present Regions in RS:

1. Create Colorways in Colorist.
2. Go to the Page tab and set the page size. Make sure “Show Page Border” is checked off
3. Go to the Regions Tab
4. Use the Rectangle tool on the left side of the RS window to make a rectangle on the artwork area that you want to present
5. Click Set in the Region tab
6. Go to the Colorist tab and select the colorways you want to present
7. Go to File>Export
8. Choose where you want to export the files to in the Directory
9. Check off Colorways and Multiple per Page
10. Check off Use One Page or set the amount of colorways vertically and horizontally
11. Click OK at the bottom of the export panel

For more information email support@AquarioDesign.com for further assistance.

Although Aquario Design has the functionality in it’s palette manager and palette utility tools to house information such as color name, pantone number, LAB/RGB values and so on, sometimes you may want more of that information to be displayed on one line for colleagues or vendors who may not have access our tools. Adding the color code to the color name in your Illustrator ASE palette is the easiest workaround for displaying more color information without having access to our tools. Please note though that Illustrator has a 31 character limit when it comes to naming a color.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

When you have made multiple colorways in Colorist, you can select the colorways that you want to send off and present them. The presented files with be automatically exported into a new Illustrator document that can be saved as any file type or kept as an Illustrator file for other's to utilize inside of Illustrator without the DesignPro plug-ins. “

1. Set up the artwork on the page as desired using your Colorist Templates or the Layout and Show tabs along with any Illustrator functions like the artboard or Alignment tools.
2. Go to the Colorways tab in Colorist and select the colorways you want to send off.
3. Click the 3rd button down on the right side of the colorist tool. This is the Present button. It will create a new Illustrator file called “File Name_All Colorways.ai” Each colorway will be on its own artboard and grouped together. This is the file you will share with others.
4. You can always go back to the original colorist file and edit the artwork/make changes to colorways and present them again.

nFor more information please email support@AquarioDesign.com
¬†”

In the CC2019 version of Illustrator, the Ai tool box sometimes defaults to the “Basic” setting, which will hide many of the Illustrator tools including the DesignPro Weave, Knit, and Fashion features.

The tools referred to here For Weave are the Add Element Tool, Select Element, Draw Pattern, and Dobby Magnet tools. The Knit tools here are the Knitting tool, Knit Selection tool, Knit Paint tool, and Knit Eyedropper tool. The Fashion tools are the Fashion Sketch Pen tool and the Symmetry line tool.

There a few ways to show the Aquario Design tools in the Illustrator toolbar:

1. Go to the Toolbar and click the “…” at the bottom
2. Click the Options icon at the top right corner
3. Check off Advanced

• Go to Window>Toolbars>Advanced. This will expand the toolbox to include the DesignPro tools.
• Go to Window>Workspace>Essentials Classic. This will change the Illustrator workspace to the classic  essentials setup from older versions of Illustrator, including expanding the toolbox to include the Aquario Design tools.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

Select art in Illustrator. It can be vector art or placed raster images. When you click the Dimension or Ruler Tool, you will see dimensions or gridded rulers around the art. If you hold down shift and multi-select more than one image or motif, you can get dimensions around all of it. To remove the dimensions or rulers, click the Dimension and Ruler buttons again.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

When creating a weave simulation to mimic a jacquard weave, there are a few tools necessary to.

To fix the issue, go to Preferences and look for the Performance tab to the left side of the window. Uncheck the box at the top of that section for GPU Performance. This will fix the rendering of the knit and weave images. Note: This issue can happen again if AI shuts down unexpectedly and resets to default preferences.

If this does not fix the issue contact us at support@aquariodesign.com

The rulers and dimensions are on the Design Bar in Illustrator. Open the Design Bar by going to Window> Aquario Design>Design Bar and using the 1 buttons. If you do not see the rulers and dimensions 1 icons click on the Aquario Design logo and check Quick Dimensions Utilities from the dropdown menu.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

RS converts all colors to RGB mode. If your AI color palette was created in CMYK mode, you’ll notice the colors change once you bring them into RS. Best practice is to always work with color in RGB mode to avoid any issues later on. For more information or support, please contact contact@aquariodesign.com

When working with Colorist in Illustrator you need to make sure that you are creating colorways in the working version of the artwork file: that is, an Illustrator file format with vector artwork. If you are working with Weave files, make sure that the weave bars (the warp and weft color, thread, and pattern bars) are visible in the document and unlocked. When you recolor a weave in Colorist, it is really recoloring the color bars and need all bars available in the document to re-generate the Weave swatch for each colorway that you create. When the colorways are presented, the Weave bars will automatically be excluded from presentation in the _All Colorways file that is created. If you are working with Repeat files, make sure that you are working with the original repeat artwork created by Aquario Design. It should not be a rasterized version of the artwork or the Repeat Swatch that is generated by the Swatch button on the repeat tool. If you are working with Knit files, make sure that you have the actual Knit stitches on the document to recolor, not just the Fill Size or a swatch of the knits. Colorist needs the Knit stitches in the file so it can recolor them properly; though that the Fill Size will be recolored as well. Individual knit swatches are just rasterized versions of the stitches, so they will not be recolored automatically. However, when you present the colorways, Colorist will include a swatch version of each knit colorway in the swatches box. If you are using the Knit Fill Size, only the Fill Size will be presented and the knit stitches will be removed in the presentation file. If you are working with regular Illustrator artwork, make sure that the artwork is in vector format and unlocked in the layer list. Some artwork and effects may need to be expanded in order for Colorist to read the artwork properly and recolor it. I f Colorways are unresponsive, copy and paste the artwork into a new Illustrator file. For additional support please email contact@aquariodesign.com for further assistance.

After copying and pasting weave bars and placing them in another section of the design, you must click the Align button on the Weave tool under the Property Elements section. If you do not, when you click the Copy Warp to Weft button, the weave bars that have been duplicated will shift to sit behind any bars that they were placed on top of. For additional help, please reach out to contact@aquariodesign.com

Aquario Design version 5.0.1 was packaged without the Aquario Design weave swatches, knit symbols and fashion sketch brushes libraries. To get them back, you can update or backdate to another release of Aquario Design OR contact the support team to manually add the libraries into your presets library. For additional information or support, please contact contact@aquariodesign.com

As of Aquario Design version 5.0, you are able to create and use illustrator symbols in Aquario Design repeat and Colorist tools.

For additional information or support, please contact support@aquariodesign.com

The Fashion Pen tool and the Adobe pen tool both use paths and anchors when creating lines and shapes in a document. These lines can be filled and closed the same way. Control+Shift+A will release the pen, and anchor handles behave the same way. The main differences with Fashion Pen tool are listed below:

When making a curve, click and drag your curve in the direction you want the curve to go. You will get scalloped edges this way. You do not have to click your last anchor point to change the axis of your next curve as you move forward, simply make your next anchor point and drag the direction you want the curve to go, holding down shift will give you straight lines, not constrain your curve to 45% as in Illustrator.

For additional information or support, please contact the team at support@aquariodesign.com

Only raster artwork can be recolored using Raster Recolor. It tonally recolors each raster pixel in the artwork. The tool matches the closest value based on the said color that has been chosen. Vector art is raster-free. If you need to recolor vector artwork, use the Colorist tool. For further information please contact the team at contact@aquariodesign.com

Palettes and templates can be mapped to a public or private location depending on the request or needs of the customer. If you are mapped to a public server location, anyone else from your organization who is mapped to the same location will have access to the templates and palettes you create, and vice versa. If you are mapped to a private location, like your desktop, palettes and templates are not shared. For additional information or support, please contact the team at contact@aquariodesign.com

This message happens when recoloring a spot color with a process color in Colorist. A spot color is a custom color including Pantones. If you respond No to this message, it will apply the process color to the color chip and preserve the color as a process color in the Illustrator Swatches. If you choose yes, it will apply the process color to the color chip and it will convert the process color into a spot color in the swatches.

For further information please contact us at support@aquariodesign.com

Aquario Design runs on the same versions of Adobe that Adobe supports. Adobe recently stopped supporting version 2017 and older, so we only support Adobe CC Versions 2018 and later. For additional information or support, please contact contact@aquariodesign.com

Yes! You can add non color swatches to your palettes in Palette Manager. However, the thumbnail image for patterns is always a black and white grid, so make sure to give the pattern a good descriptive name! For additional information or support, please email contact@aquariodesign.com

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), is a specialized processor that can rapidly execute commands for manipulating and displaying images, animation and video applications. We turn GPU off because while rendering weaves and knits in Aquario Design, GPU performance causes them to visually render incorrectly. For additional information or support, please email contact@aquariodesign.com

You can use the Element Details section in the Weave tool to change the length of the weave bars, but the Numeric Design Tab will be disabled after colorways have been added in Colorist. The length of the bars can be edited and the thread count can be changed. You can delete out bars and redraw them with the Add Element tool, however you cannot use the Copy to Warp/Weft button as this will break the colorways. Any new color bars should be added to the colorways by selecting the bars and clicking the Add button on the Colorways tab in Colorist. For further assistance please email contact@aquariodesign.com

Because the connection to the palette location has not been mapped or been lost. For further assistance please contact the team at contact@aquariodesign.com

Changing units of measurement on the numeric design tab is only used for weave drawing purposes. To show the repeat size in centimeters, you will need to change the illustrator document to centimeters by going to File – Document Setup inside of AI.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

If you are using a Mac computer and are on the Sierra version or older, Design Bar will not show up, even though the rest of the tools are installed. The rest of the tools are not affected and can still be used as normal.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

Yes. Undo is a valid function in any Aquario Design file in Illustrator. However, It will only undo back to the step of adding a new colorway to the file. It does not have an unlimited undo stack in a Colorist file. To undo actions performed on the file, make sure to click once on the file before doing an undo to bring focus away from the Colorist tool if the last thing clicked was the Colorist panel.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

Check on the Repeat tool that the Opacity option is not blank. If there is no number in the Opacity field, chose one from the list to type on in and the copies will come back to the file.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

This message can mean that information in the file has gotten corrupted. Typically it can indicate that a color or pattern swatch has gotten corrupted.

These workflows can possibly help recover some of the file information: Look in the lines of the message to see the name of the corrupted swatch. If possible, after the file opens in Illustrator, check the Swatches window and remove that swatch. Save the file and try to reopen it. If the file opens but looks blank, zoom all the way out and check to see if there is any artwork in the top left corner of the artwork. Try opening the file in Acrobat and re-save it there. If Acrobat does not want to open the file as an Illustrator file, manually change the extension of the file name from .ai to .pdf and then open the file in Acrobat, save the file, and then open in Illustrator. Try opening the file in Photoshop to retain some the artwork. Make a new Illustrator document and place the corrupted file into the new document.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

In the current version of our software the Knit tool does not have the same ability as weave to show technical information. Some workarounds for this include:

1. Placing grids on top of the knit design, allowing you to count out each stitch when in color chart view.

2. Using fill size to populate stitches at a particular repeat size.

For additional information or support, please contact support@aquariodesign.com

The Aquario Design configuration file needs to be set up in order to create and save templates and color palettes. To setup your file please email support@aquariodesign.com. If the configuration file has been set up and is on a shared or network drive, make sure that you are fully connected to the server location and can save files there. After you reconnect, close and restart Illustrator. If the network location has changed at all, please contact the team at support@aquariodesign.com to have a support specialist edit the configuration file for you.

Yes. Palette Manager creates an Illustrator file with your color palette and an .Ase file in the location where the palettes are saved. Do not move these files but you can copy the .Ase file and share the palette with someone who does not have Aquario Design installed that way.

For any additional help please contact support@aquariodesign.com for more information.

For Weave files, make sure that all Weave Elements have been made with the Add Elements tool. Make sure to save the working Weave file as an Illustrator file. Do not merge Elements using the Illustrator Path Finder tool as this will cause them to not be readable by the Weave or Colorist tools. Merge elements using the Merge button in the Weave toolbox. When you select a functioning Weave element bar with the selection tool, the Element Details section of the Weave tool window will engage and tell you the property type, if it is from the warp or weft, and the length of the bar. If this section does not engage then the Weave bar was not handled or made correctly. You can copy and paste all of the Weave bars into a new Illustrator document and generate the weave again, or re-draw the broken Weave bars using the Add Element tool.

For any additional help please contact us at support@aquariodesign.com for more information.

After looking at the file, there were a few things I noticed that could have caused an issue, especially all done together.

Possible mistakes include:
1. The weave may not have been created in a new file.
2. The thread and pattern bars were checked off in addition to color bars, meaning the customer drew out multiple layers of thread and pattern when adding his stripe color bars.
3. The customer changed the weft pattern bar to one of our plain weave swatches from the basics folder, but chose a larger scale plain weave than the one that we have defaulted, and the one that was in his warp.
4. The colors he chose to draw out his warp stripes were not .ai swatches, but instead just eye dropped from the inspiration sample sitting in the file.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

You can scale your weave up to 200% using the Weave module in Illustrator. For any percentage above 200% you will have to use the Illustrator Scale tool, not the Weave tool.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com

If you are experiencing issues while saving or exporting files to a server or share drive from an Aquario Design application, please follow the these steps to fix the issue.

-Save/export to a local location (ie. Desktop) to eliminate all connection issues to external locations. If this is successful, check the list below and then re-try sending the files elsewhere.

-Check that the drive is still connected and hasn’t dropped off by clicking into it via Finder (Mac) or Explorer (PC). Once it is confirmed that the drive location is stable, try exporting or saving there again.

-If the computer is not connected to an Ethernet cable and is working on wifi, please check that the wifi connection is also stable and hasn’t dropped. If it has, reconnect and try again or try plugging into a hard wired connection for more stability.

-Try saving the file locally and closing the program all together. Check all connections above and then try opening the file again and exporting/saving to the server/share drive.

For additional information or support, please email support@AquarioDesign.com