Color Tips for Creating Tablet Publications
When you’re designing a document to be read on a tablet such as Apple’s iPad, the optimum colors are not the same as when you’re designing for print. For example:
- Use a cream color instead of white for large areas of background. (White can be irritating.)
- Use RGB black instead of the “100% K” black used in printing, especially on text. (Text is anti-aliased on-screen, and having more “color” to work with allows the anti-aliasing system to create smoother edges.) To create an RGB black color, just use 0% Red, 0% Green and 0% Blue — you can type in the zeros, or just drag the slider all the way down, as in the screen capture below.
- Avoid using saturated greens and purples, because they appear dim on-screen. Bright blues and reds are OK.

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.
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