RGB to Pantone Converter
Take a screen colour expressed as red, green and blue channels and find the closest spot colour in the Pantone Matching System — the starting point for any print or branding spec.
Pantone
Pantone HEX
What is an RGB to Pantone converter?
RGB is an additive model: a screen mixes red, green and blue light to make millions of distinct colours. Pantone, by contrast, is a fixed library of roughly 2,000 pre-mixed spot inks. There is no formula that turns one into the other, so this converter does the only honest thing — it walks the Pantone library and returns the swatch that sits closest to your RGB value in colour space. The result is an approximation, not an equality.
That distinction matters. Your RGB input can describe colours that simply do not exist as a Pantone ink, and two RGB values a few units apart can both round to the same PMS code. Treat the answer as a strong first guess that gets you into the right neighbourhood, then refine from there.
Everything runs locally in your browser. Nothing about the colours you paste — including any unreleased brand palette — is sent to a server.
How to convert RGB to Pantone
- 1
Enter your RGB values
Type the red, green and blue channels (each 0–255), or paste an rgb() string straight from your design tool.
- 2
Read the nearest match
The tool compares your colour against the Pantone library and shows the closest spot colour, with a live preview swatch.
- 3
Copy the PMS code
Grab the Pantone number for your print spec, brand sheet, or supplier brief.
- 4
Verify before you print
For any colour that carries brand weight, check the suggested code against a physical Pantone book before signing off.
Where RGB to Pantone helps
Bridge digital to print
Your logo was built in RGB but the print shop wants a PMS number. This gets you a defensible starting point for that conversation.
Brief suppliers quickly
Hand a fabricator or packaging vendor a Pantone code instead of a screenshot, which removes a lot of guesswork.
Sanity-check a palette
See whether a screen colour even has a sensible spot-ink neighbour before you commit it to a printed deliverable.
Keep work private
Conversion happens in the browser, so confidential rebrand colours never leave your machine.
Worked example
A familiar brand red, entered as RGB and matched to its closest spot colour.
rgb(228, 0, 43)Pantone 185 C (closest match)185 C is the widely-cited spot colour for this red. Your converter returns the nearest library entry; always confirm against a physical swatch for production.
Why an exact RGB to Pantone match rarely exists
RGB and Pantone don't just use different numbers — they describe colour in fundamentally different ways. RGB is light emitted by a screen; Pantone is ink sitting on paper, reflecting ambient light. A vivid on-screen blue can fall outside the range any single Pantone ink can reproduce, so the 'nearest match' may look noticeably more muted in print. This is normal and expected, not a flaw in the tool.
Calibration adds another wrinkle. The same RGB triplet renders differently on an uncalibrated laptop, a phone, and a colour-managed studio monitor. Because of that, the swatch preview here is a guide to relative hue, not a colour-accurate proof.
Treat the result as a draft, then verify
- Use the suggested PMS code to start a print spec, not to finalise it.
- Hold the printed Pantone chip next to your intended colour under D50 lighting (the print-industry standard), not office fluorescents.
- Remember coated (C) and uncoated (U) versions of the same number look different — match the paper stock you'll actually print on.
- If the colour anchors a brand, get a physical proof from your printer before a production run.
Frequently asked questions
No. Pantone is a fixed set of around 2,000 inks, so the tool returns the closest available spot colour rather than a perfect equivalent. Many RGB colours have no exact Pantone match at all.
Screens emit light and can show colours more saturated than any printed ink can reflect. When the nearest Pantone ink is less vivid, that gap shows up — it's a real limitation of print, not a conversion error.
Yes. C means the colour as printed on coated (glossy) stock; the same number on uncoated paper (U) looks different. Match the suffix to the paper you'll actually use.
Use it for relative hue only. Unless your monitor is colour-calibrated, the preview won't be an accurate proof of the printed colour.
Use the Pantone to RGB tool, which looks up the published screen value for a given PMS code.
List the Pantone as the print authority and the RGB as the digital companion. A format like 'Pantone 185 C / rgb(228, 0, 43) / #E4002B' covers both channels clearly. Developers use the RGB; print suppliers use the PMS number. Note that these are approximations of each other, not equivalents.
Need another tool?
Browse the full toolbox or dig into the blog for the engineering behind it.