About the HEX to Pantone Converter
A brand is defined in HEX for the website and in Pantone for anything that gets printed on a mug, a jacket or a sign, and sooner or later somebody has to bridge the two. Paste HEX codes here and each one is matched against a table of Pantone Solid Coated approximations. The match is calculated in CIELAB rather than in RGB, because Lab distance tracks what the eye notices instead of what the maths finds convenient.
Each row shows your colour, the matched swatch and a delta E figure. As a rule of thumb a delta E under 2 is a difference only a trained eye catches in a side by side test, 2 to 5 is a visible but usually acceptable drift, and anything past 10 is plainly a different colour that you should not present as a match. Bright saturated screen colours often score badly here, since many of them simply have no ink equivalent.
Treat the answer as a shortlist, not a specification. Pantone inks are physical, mixed rather than printed from process colours, and their appearance depends on stock and finish, so a licensed guide or a printer proof remains the final word. When the destination is a four colour press instead of a spot ink, HEX to CMYK is the more useful conversion, and Pantone to HEX goes back the other way.
How to use
- Paste HEX codes into the pane, one per line.
- Press Match to see the nearest Pantone reference for each.
- Check the delta E column before you trust a match.
- Confirm the winner against a physical guide.
Common questions
- Is this an official Pantone conversion?
- No, it compares against published sRGB approximations and is not a licensed Pantone colour library.
- What does the delta E number mean?
- It is the perceptual distance in CIELAB between your colour and the match, where smaller is closer and under 2 is very close.
- Why can no Pantone get close to my colour?
- Screens emit light and inks reflect it, so vivid greens, cyans and neons often fall outside what a single spot ink can reach.
- Which Pantone library is used?
- A subset of the Solid Coated range, covering the common three and four digit numbers, the greys and the base inks.