Draw in Gray and CMYK

Print workflows often need gray or CMYK colors instead of RGB. Both the low-level content context and Recipe draw in the DeviceGray and DeviceCMYK color spaces; they differ in how the color value selects the space.

Low Level

Set colorspace to a DeviceColorSpace value and pass the color as a number. A gray color is one byte, from 0x00 (black) to 0xff (white). A CMYK color packs its four components as 0xCCMMYYKK, so 0x00ff0000 is full magenta:

var muhammara = require("@muhammara/native");
var writer = muhammara.createWriter("device-colors.pdf");
var page = writer.createPage(0, 0, 595, 842);

writer
  .startPageContentContext(page)
  .drawRectangle(72, 700, 100, 50, {
    type: "fill",
    colorspace: muhammara.DeviceColorSpace.GRAY,
    color: 0x80,
  })
  .drawRectangle(200, 700, 100, 50, {
    type: "fill",
    colorspace: muhammara.DeviceColorSpace.CMYK,
    color: 0x00ff0000,
  })
  .drawRectangle(328, 700, 100, 50, { type: "fill", color: "teal" });

writer.writePage(page);
writer.end();

A CSS color name such as "teal" or a #rrggbb string is always RGB. Combining one with the gray or CMYK colorspace throws TypeError: only a numeric color can use the gray or cmyk colorspace before anything is drawn; convert the color to a gray or CMYK number instead. writeText() follows the same rules.

Recipe

Recipe reads the color space from the color itself. A hex color with two digits or a one-number array is gray, and one with eight digits or a four-number array is CMYK:

var muhammara = require("@muhammara/native");

new muhammara.Recipe("new", "recipe-device-colors.pdf")
  .createPage(595, 842)
  .rectangle(72, 72, 100, 50, { fill: "#80" })
  .rectangle(200, 72, 100, 50, { fill: "#00ff0000" })
  .rectangle(328, 72, 100, 50, { fill: [0, 0, 0, 255] })
  .endPage()
  .endPDF();

Register a name for a gray or CMYK color with chroma(), and see Colors, Shapes, and Vectors for Separation (spot) colors.