Spectrolite Integration

Spectrolite is a free Mac app that helps do color separation and other things to more easily make colorful risograph prints. Because Spectrolite is also made by ANEMONE, the people who make Layout Department, we’ve added some special features to make them work well together.

Send to Spectrolite

If you have both Spectrolite and Layout Department on your computer, you will see a Spectrolite button in the top left corner, near the Export button. This moves your layout file directly over to Spectrolite (the app will open if needed) so you can do color separation and otherwise prep your file to risograph print.

If you don’t see a Spectrolite button, make sure you have the latest version of Spectrolite downloaded, and then restart Layout Department. You will only see the button on Macs, because Spectrolite is a Mac app. (Here’s a form here to be notified if there is ever Spectrolite for Windows.)

You can also Export your files and then load them into Layout Department later — this is just for convenience.

Printer’s marks and color separation

If you include printer’s marks (like center marks) in the PDF you make with this layout app, then put the file in to Spectrolite to for color separation, Spectrolite detects that marks came from this layout app and put the marks on the appropriate color layer(s).

This works for files made with Layout Department on Windows computers, you’d need to transfer them over to a Mac to use Spectrolite.