Pantone to Hex Color Converter

What this tool does

A brand hands you a colour as a Pantone number, something like 19-4052 (Classic Blue), and you need it on a website, where colours are written as hex codes. Pantone is a print standard, a physical ink, and the web has no idea what to do with an ink number. So the Pantone reference has to be turned into a hex code before a stylesheet or a design tool can use it.

That is what this does. You give it a Pantone colour, and it returns the matching hex code, the closest screen version of that ink, packed into a single string ready to paste. It takes a print colour named by a Pantone number and hands you the web form of it, with a note below on how faithfully a screen can stand in for a printed ink.

How to use it

1. Enter your Pantone colour. Type or select your Pantone colour, such as 19-4052 (Classic Blue), from the list.
2. Read the hex code. The matching six-character hex code appears at once, hash and all.
3. Copy it across. Drop the hex code into your stylesheet or design tool, where it stands in for the Pantone colour on screen.

Choose the Pantone from the list or enter its code, and read the hex value from the result, whichever suits the way you are working.

How it works

Each Pantone colour has a known screen equivalent, so the tool works by looking yours up. It holds a table that pairs Pantone numbers with their hex codes, finds the entry for the colour you chose, and returns the hex stored against it. There is no calculation to run, because a Pantone number is a name for a specific ink rather than a set of values to convert.

That look-up gives you the standard screen version of the ink, the hex that best represents it on a display. It is a fixed, agreed equivalent rather than something derived on the spot, which is why the same Pantone always returns the same hex. The one honest limit, covered further down, is how well any screen colour can match a printed ink.

What a Pantone reference is

A Pantone colour is a standardised printing ink identified by a number, like 19-4052 (Classic Blue). Each number names one specific, pre-mixed ink, defined as a physical standard, so it prints the same on any press in any workshop. That is why a brand picks a Pantone colour: it fixes their colour exactly, and every printer can reproduce it without guessing.

Because it is a physical ink rather than a recipe, a Pantone colour lives on printed reference cards, not on a screen. A designer chooses it from those cards and specifies the number, and it can include colours ordinary printing cannot mix, such as metallics and fluorescents, each its own dedicated ink. When you start a conversion from a Pantone reference, you are starting from that fixed, physical colour and asking for its nearest screen form.

How a Pantone becomes hex

The two are unlike each other from the ground up. A Pantone colour is a physical ink named by a number, one of a curated set of standardised pigments. A hex code is a record of red, green, and blue light a screen emits, written as six characters. One is a jar of ink on a shelf; the other is an instruction to a display, so there is no formula leading from one to the other.

What bridges them is an agreed table of equivalents. For each Pantone ink, someone has determined the screen colour that represents it best, and that colour is stored as a hex code. The tool simply reads the hex paired with your Pantone number. So the conversion is a look-up of a known match rather than a calculation, giving you the standard screen stand-in for the printed ink.

Why convert Pantone to hex

The usual reason is bringing a brand colour to the web. Companies often define their colours as Pantone numbers for print, then need those same colours on a website, in an app, or in a digital design, where hex is the common way to write colour. Converting the Pantone gives you the hex code that keeps the brand colour consistent from the printed page to the screen.

It is also simply what digital tools require. A Pantone number means nothing to CSS or a design application, both of which expect hex, so the colour has to be converted before it can be used at all. The result is a single, ready-to-paste code that carries the Pantone colour into every place screen colour is needed.

How close the hex really is

It is worth being clear about what the hex represents. It is the screen version of the ink, the closest a display can come to a printed Pantone colour, not an exact copy of it. A monitor makes colour from emitted light while a printed ink reflects it, so the two never match perfectly, and the hex is a faithful digital equivalent rather than the ink itself.

For most Pantone colours that equivalent is close and perfectly usable on screen. The exceptions are the special inks, the metallics and fluorescents, which have no real screen match at all, so their hex can only hint at the effect rather than reproduce it. Treat the hex as an excellent digital stand-in for everyday Pantone colours, while remembering that a screen and a printed ink are simply two different things.

Questions people ask

How do I get a hex code from a Pantone colour?

Select or enter the Pantone number and the tool returns the matching hex code, the screen equivalent of that ink, ready to paste into a stylesheet.

Is the hex an exact match for the Pantone ink?

It is the closest screen version. A Pantone colour is a physical ink, and a screen cannot reproduce it exactly, so the hex is a faithful digital equivalent rather than a perfect copy.

Why would I convert a Pantone to hex?

To use a brand's print colour on the web. Brand colours are often defined as Pantone numbers, and a hex code lets you carry that colour onto a website or app.

Can every Pantone colour become hex?

Most can, as a close equivalent, but special inks like metallics and fluorescents have no true screen match, so their hex is only an approximation of the effect.

References

1. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), CSS Color Module Level 4. https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-4/
2. Pantone, the Pantone Matching System and standardised spot colours. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone
3. Web colors, hex triplets and how they encode red, green, and blue. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors