Saving a Color Swatch in the Colors Window

In the decorating world, a swatch is a sample piece cut from a material such as fabric or carpeting. The nice thing about a swatch is that you can carry it with you to match other objects. You can also save swatches of color in the Colors window so that you can keep them and apply them to other objects or projects.

To save a color in the Colors window, you simply drag a color chip from the color bar at the top of the window to the white swatches at the bottom of the window.

Let's create a swatch using the selected yellow color so that you can reuse the swatch in the next exercise to change the text color.

1.	In the Colors window, click inside the color bar to grab a color chip.
2.	Drag the color chip to one of the empty white swatches at the bottom of the Colors window and release the mouse. It doesn't matter which swatch you place the color chip on as long as it doesn't already contain a color. A yellow swatch appears at the bottom of the Colors window.
3.	Close the Colors window.
4.	Press Cmd-S to save your progress.

Applying a Color Swatch to an Object

The last step in the Oakley project is to change the color of the text. Your goal in this exercise is to use the color swatch that you created in the previous exercise to change the color of the text. The text object and the second watch both appear in the project at about the same time. If they are the same yellow color, your eyes will notice both, and you'll likely take the time to read the text and admire the second watch. That will make the client very happy.

1.	Press Shift-Cmd-A to deselect all objects in the project.
2.	Press the spacebar to play the project, if it's not already playing.
3.	In the Canvas, click the Time Oakley text object to select it.
4.	In the Text Dashboard, click the color well to open the Colors window for the text object.
5.	Click the yellow color swatch at the bottom of the Colors window to make it the selected color. The text object in the Canvas changes to the yellow swatch color.
6.	Close the Colors window.
7.	Close the Dashboard.
8.	Press Cmd-S to save your project.