Navigate to Window > Extensions > Pantone Connect .
Install the Pantone Connect Extension
In Illustrator, open the Swatches panel and click New Color Swatch . download pantone colors for illustrator
If you have an older version of Illustrator (pre-2022) or backup files, you can transfer the .ase (Adobe Swatch Exchange) files.
There are a few ways to download Pantone colors for Illustrator: Navigate to Window > Extensions > Pantone Connect
By mastering the use of Pantone colors in Illustrator, you can enhance your design workflow, improve color accuracy, and deliver high-quality designs that meet your clients' expectations.
As of 2025 and beyond, the era of freely "downloading" Pantone libraries into Illustrator is over. This guide has mapped out the new landscape, showing you that the primary, official route is now the subscription plugin. While workarounds like extracting old libraries or using GitHub files exist, they are unofficial and not future-proof. There are a few ways to download Pantone
Not long ago, life was simple. You opened Illustrator, clicked the Swatch Libraries menu, and there it was: a sprawling, hierarchical kingdom of numbered chips—Pantone Solid Coated, Pantone Process CMYK, Pantone Metallic. It was like having a universal translator for color. A designer in Berlin could spec "Pantone 185 C" and a printer in Shanghai would know exactly which vat of red to open. It was a silent agreement between Adobe and Pantone, a symbiosis as natural as a brush and paint.
Click the icon (the folder icon in the bottom-left corner of the panel). Select Other Library... from the dropdown menu.