Search any Pantone name or number for its hex chip in this Pantone to HEX converter, or drop in a hex code to find the nearest Pantone match.
No chip selectedType a Pantone code, color name, or hex value above, or pick one from the row below, to see its chip.
A Pantone to HEX converter is a tool that translates a Pantone Matching System code into its closest six-digit HEX equivalent for screens.
It bridges two color worlds that were never built to speak the same language.
Pantone, the standardized color reference used across print, packaging, and product design, was built for ink on paper.
HEX was built for light on a screen.
That gap between ink and light is the entire reason this kind of converter exists.
Graphic designers, brand managers, and web developers reach for one constantly, usually the moment a print-only brand identity needs to show up on a website or app.
Consistent brand color reportedly lifts recognition by up to 80 percent, a figure that traces back to Loyola University research and still gets cited across marketing studies today.
That's a lot riding on one accurate hex string.
Tiffany & Co. trademarked its signature shade as Pantone 1837, named for the year the company was founded, and has kept it locked to that exact code across a century and a half of boxes and bags.
Getting that blue right on a screen isn't optional when a whole brand identity depends on it.
Match a print-approved color to a live website
Preview a physical swatch inside a digital mockup
Keep packaging, signage, and app screens visually aligned
None of these conversions are pixel-for-pixel guarantees. More on why in a minute.
The Pantone Matching System is a standardized color reference created in 1963 by chemist Lawrence Herbert, giving every ink formula a fixed numbered code so printers anywhere in the world can reproduce the same color.
Herbert built it after watching different print shops interpret the same request for "red" in wildly different ways.
By 1968, it had already become the de facto industry standard across the United States.
Pantone LLC now operates as a subsidiary of X-Rite, itself under the Veralto corporation, though the numbering logic Herbert set up in 1963 hasn't changed in structure.
Roughly 2,700 solid PMS colors exist today, each mixed from a set of about 15 base inks according to Pantone's own Formula Guide.
About 30 percent of those spot colors can't be reproduced through standard CMYK printing at all, per longstanding industry estimates, which is exactly why a separate spot-color workflow still exists on press.
|
Suffix |
Paper Finish |
Visual Result |
|---|---|---|
|
C (Coated) |
Smooth, sealed stock |
Brighter, more saturated |
|
U (Uncoated) |
Porous, absorbent stock |
Muted, slightly warmer |
|
M (Matte) |
Flat matte coating |
Sits between C and U |
Same ink formula, same PMS number, different paper, different result to the eye.
Pantone 186 C and Pantone 186 U are not identical, even though they share a code.
Coated stock seals the surface, so ink sits on top and looks vivid.
Uncoated stock is porous. Ink soaks in, and the same formula reads muted and warmer.
Brand guidelines commonly list both versions, one for glossy marketing collateral, one for letterheads or kraft packaging.
A HEX color code is a six-character string that represents red, green, and blue (RGB) light values in hexadecimal, used everywhere from CSS to Photoshop's color picker.
Two characters control each channel, running from 00 to FF.
That gives 16.7 million possible combinations packed into one short string.
Every pixel on a screen is ultimately built from these same three channels of light, whether it's rendering a photo, a video call, or a single flat brand color.
The values a HEX code represents are typically measured against sRGB, the color space standardized for the web back in 1998.
sRGB covers only about 35.9 percent of the color the human eye can actually perceive, according to gamut research published by ScienceInsights.
That limitation matters more than it sounds like it should. More on that shortly.
|
Color |
HEX |
RGB |
|---|---|---|
|
White |
#FFFFFF |
255, 255, 255 |
|
Black |
#000000 |
0, 0, 0 |
|
Pure Red |
#FF0000 |
255, 0, 0 |
HEX has no concept of paper, ink, or lighting conditions. It only knows light values on a screen.
Pantone to HEX conversion works by looking up a PMS code inside Pantone's own published RGB and HEX equivalency tables, then outputting the matching six-digit string, no live ink scanning required for a standard lookup.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and the Pantone Connect app each keep a built-in version of this same lookup library.
Static reference tables are the norm here. A physical colorimeter reading only comes into play during print-quality control, not everyday design work.
Pantone calculates its official conversions using Lab color space, a model built to mirror human color perception rather than any single screen or printer.
That's a deliberate choice. Lab treats color the way people actually see it, which keeps the RGB and HEX equivalents consistent regardless of which device eventually displays them.
Running that same math by hand looks almost identical to what a standalone RGB to HEX converter does once the RGB numbers are already known.
Ink formula - the physical starting point, unique to each PMS code
RGB approximation - Pantone's own published conversion, an additive light estimate
HEX string - the RGB numbers converted directly into hex pairs
Ink formula, then RGB, then HEX. That order almost never runs in reverse for a standard forward lookup.
Pantone to HEX conversion isn't exact because ink-based spot color and screen-based light don't occupy the same range of visible color, so some Pantone shades simply have no honest HEX equivalent.
Ink mixing: subtractive, pigments absorb light, adding more ink pulls a color toward black.
Screen light: additive, wavelengths combine, adding more channels pushes a color toward white.
Two different physical processes aimed at the same visual target rarely land in exactly the same place.
Pantone's own numbers show how wide that gap can get. A seven-color extended-gamut printing process, what Pantone calls CMYKOGV, can only match roughly 90 percent of PMS spot colors.
The remaining slice, mostly metallics, fluorescents, and specific brand shades, has no honest screen equivalent at all.
Highly saturated inks are usually where the mismatch shows up first and worst.
Some newer displays support Display P3, a gamut noticeably wider than sRGB, which closes part of the distance for certain vivid Pantone shades, though not all of them.
Monitor calibration compounds the problem further. Professional-grade displays typically target a Delta E under 2, the point where color shift becomes invisible to the eye, but most consumer monitors ship without that calibration done.
Pantone's own conversion charts carry a quiet disclaimer for exactly this reason. Visual matching between print and screen gets approximated, never guaranteed.
A handful of Pantone codes get looked up constantly, and their most-cited HEX equivalents are worth having on hand.
|
Pantone Code |
HEX |
Common Name |
|---|---|---|
|
PMS 186 C |
#C8102E |
Red |
|
PMS 286 C |
#0039A6 |
Blue |
|
PMS Black C |
#2D2926 |
Rich Black |
These values come straight from Pantone's Color Bridge guide, which pairs every PMS number with matching CMYK, RGB, and HEX values side by side on the same page.
Coated and uncoated versions of the same PMS number often produce two separate HEX pairs in that same guide, the direct digital consequence of the paper difference covered earlier.
Plenty of brands skip the lookup step entirely and just publish their own fixed number.
Coca-Cola's red and UPS's brown are locked to one specific HEX value across every touchpoint the company controls, written straight into the brand style guide rather than left for anyone downstream to reinterpret.
Building that kind of lookup into a documented color palette keeps every designer, printer, and developer working from the same reference instead of eyeballing a swatch under office lighting.
Four practical paths exist for converting Pantone to HEX: Pantone's own official tools, built-in swatch libraries inside design software, manual lookup in a printed guide, or free online converters of varying reliability.
The "free built-in" option isn't as free as it used to be.
Pantone ended its bundling deal with Adobe in November 2022, and free access to the full swatch library went with it.
Individual users now need a separate Pantone Connect license on top of whatever Creative Cloud already costs, and that single licensing change reshaped how a lot of working designers now handle this exact conversion.
Pantone Connect (web app, mobile app, and Adobe plugin) is the current official path for a full digital lookup.
Individual pricing sits at $14.99 a month, or $89.99 billed annually, per Pantone's own FAQ.
Business tiers start around $89.99 per seat per year, climbing higher with single sign-on requirements.
The Pantone Color Finder tool handles quick single-code lookups without any subscription commitment at all.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign all shipped Pantone swatch libraries by default for years, no extra cost involved.
That changed the moment the Adobe deal ended. Only three color books, Pantone + CMYK Coated, Uncoated, and Metallic Coated, stayed pre-loaded afterward.
Everything else now needs the Pantone Connect plugin layered on top of an existing subscription.
Older files that already reference a Pantone swatch still open and display correctly, since the color data was saved into the file itself.
Manual cross-referencing against a physical Pantone Color Bridge guide still works too, subscription or not, for anyone who'd rather flip through a printed swatch book than pay for another login.
Converted HEX values plug straight into CSS properties like background-color and color, turning a Pantone-matched brand shade into working code across an entire website.
Design tools such as Figma and Sketch reuse that same hex string to keep UI components aligned with the printed brand identity.
Figma held 83 percent of professional UI designers as their primary tool in 2024, according to UX Tools' annual Design Tools Survey, with Sketch down to just 7 percent.
Vector graphics store a HEX value directly inside the file's own underlying code.
Bitmap exports work differently. A flattened PNG or JPEG bakes that same color into fixed pixels, so changing the brand shade later means a full re-export, not a quick code edit.
Style guides typically lock one hex value per brand color for exactly this reason, so no designer picks a slightly different shade by accident down the line.
Base hex for the primary brand color
Lighter and darker variants for hover states and disabled buttons
A tested pairing for text and background contrast
These variants usually come from a tint and shade generator, not guesswork, and the finished pairing should run through a color contrast checker before anything ships live.
Color drift still shows up after all that work. sRGB and Display P3 screens render the identical hex code slightly differently, since Display P3 covers a noticeably wider slice of visible color than the older sRGB standard.
Apple's iPhone 7 was the first iPhone to adopt Display P3 back in 2016. Samsung specs its current Galaxy S24 display at 100 percent of DCI-P3 color volume, well beyond what sRGB alone can show.
Reverse lookup tools calculate the shortest distance in Lab color space between a digital HEX or RGB value and Pantone's full color library, then return the nearest PMS match.
Pantone Connect and Adobe Color both include a reverse matching feature built for exactly this task.
The math runs the same direction as forward conversion, just flipped. Lab color space measures how far apart two colors actually look to the human eye, not just how their numbers differ on paper.
Reverse conversion stays approximate for the same reason forward conversion does. A single hex code can sit almost exactly between two separate Pantone matches, and the tool has to pick one.
The most common real use case is merchandise and signage. A brand's exact HEX code, already locked into its website and app, needs a printable Pantone spot color for a poster, tote bag, or embroidered hat.
Corporate buyers generate close to 74 percent of global print-on-demand revenue, according to Mordor Intelligence's 2025 market data, and most of that spend goes toward branded merchandise that needs matching physical ink, not just a screen-accurate hex.
Getting that reverse match wrong means a run of merchandise that technically displays the right HEX code online but looks visibly off once it's printed on fabric.
The same Pantone code produces three separate value sets depending on where that color needs to live: HEX for web pages, RGB for on-screen design software, and CMYK for anything headed to a printing press.
Each format follows its own math, so none of the three convert perfectly into either of the others.
|
Format |
Used For |
Color Model |
|---|---|---|
|
HEX |
Web pages, CSS |
Additive light |
|
RGB |
Design software, screens |
Additive light |
|
CMYK |
Printing presses, packaging |
Subtractive ink |
HEX and RGB actually describe the same additive light values, just written differently. HEX is the compressed six-character version of the same three RGB channels.
CMYK works on a completely different principle. Ink layered on paper absorbs light rather than emitting it, so a bright screen color routinely looks duller once it hits a printing press.
Digital channels now account for roughly 72.7 percent of worldwide ad investment as of 2024, per Statista figures reported through DataReportal, which is exactly why HEX and RGB conversions get requested so much more often than CMYK ones.
Print advertising spend keeps shrinking on the other side of that split, contracting an estimated 2.6 percent year over year according to Dentsu's 2024 Global Ad Spend Forecast.
Print production still depends on a separate resolution question entirely: DPI, which has nothing to do with which color format gets used but everything to do with how sharp that CMYK color looks once printed.
Basic color theory explains why one brand color needs three separate numeric identities in the first place. Light and ink simply behave like different physical materials.
A complete brand guide lists all three conversions side by side for every brand color, since no single format covers every use case a brand eventually runs into.
Referencing an outdated Pantone Color Bridge edition is the most common mistake, since Pantone periodically revises published values and an old PDF saved on a shared drive won't reflect the update.
Mixing up coated (C) and uncoated (U) codes is a close second. Applying the wrong pair to a project means the printed piece and the digital asset were never actually matched in the first place.
Getting basic terms like coated and uncoated backwards costs more than embarrassment, and brushing up on core graphic design terms early avoids the mix-up entirely.
Judging a hex match by eye on an uncalibrated monitor is another frequent error, one that feels harmless until a client opens the same file on a properly calibrated screen and sees a noticeably different color.
Confusing Pantone Process colors (built from CMYK percentages) with Pantone Solid or Spot colors is a fourth common slip. The two follow entirely separate conversion tables, and mixing them up produces a hex value that matches neither.
About 95 percent of companies maintain formal brand guidelines, yet only 25 to 30 percent actually apply them consistently across teams, according to 2024 research from Capital One Shopping.
That gap is where most of these mistakes live. A documented brand guidelines file solves nothing if nobody on the team opens it before exporting a new asset.
Tropicana learned the cost of a visual mismatch the hard way. Its 2009 packaging overhaul dropped the familiar orange-forward color cues shoppers relied on to spot the brand on a shelf, and the backlash was strong enough that the company reverted within weeks.
Consistent brand presentation can lift revenue by up to 23 percent, per Lucidpress data cited across multiple 2024 marketing reports, which puts a real number on what these small conversion mistakes actually cost.
Pantone publishes official RGB and HEX equivalents for every PMS code inside its Color Bridge guide.
Cross-checking that value against a HEX to RGB converter confirms the channel breakdown. Design software like Illustrator pulls the same number automatically from its built-in swatch library.
Basic lookups are free through community charts and simple hex code converter sites.
Getting Pantone's own verified values now requires a Pantone Connect subscription, priced at $14.99 a month, after Pantone ended its free Adobe bundling deal in 2022.
Ink and screen light use two entirely different color models.
Spot colors mixed as pigment often sit outside the sRGB gamut, so the closest hex code output is only an approximation, not a true visual match, especially for saturated or metallic shades.
Yes. Pantone's Color Bridge guide lists CMYK, RGB, and HEX values side by side for every PMS number.
It remains the industry reference, more reliable than most free online pantone hex chart tools pulled from unofficial sources.
Reasonably accurate for most solid colors, less so for neons, metallics, and pastels near the edge of the gamut.
Pantone's own extended-gamut process matches only about 90 percent of spot colors, so treat any converted hex value as a close estimate, not an exact match.
Yes, both pull a HEX value instantly once a Pantone swatch is selected.
Since November 2022, accessing the full library requires the Pantone Connect plugin, though three legacy CMYK color books still ship built into Creative Cloud at no extra cost.
Pantone Black C converts to roughly #2D2926, a warm near-black rather than pure #000000.
The slight brown undertone comes straight from the ink formula itself, not a conversion error, and shows up consistently across Pantone's official reference charts.
A reliable one does. Pantone 186 C and Pantone 186 U share a number but carry separate HEX values in the Color Bridge guide.
Coated stock reflects ink differently than uncoated paper, so always confirm which suffix was used before converting.
Yes, through reverse lookup tools that calculate the nearest Lab color space match.
An RGB to Pantone converter compares a digital value against Pantone's full library, though results stay approximate since one hex code can sit between two separate PMS matches.
Most do. Pantone Connect and the Color Bridge guide list CMYK, RGB, and HEX together for each PMS code.
A dedicated Pantone to CMYK converter is useful specifically for print jobs, where HEX values carry no practical meaning at all.