Pantone colours are special colours, which are mixed using a globally used standard system. The firm Pantone Inc. in Carlstadt/ New Jersey/ USA (originally a printing firm) introduced this standardisation for the print media industry in 1963. Today Pantone is part of the Xrite group of companies. The system initially provided 512 colour tones as a reference. They are mixed from eight basic colours, black and white and printed on both coated and uncoated paper. Today much more than 1,700 Pantone colours are available. They are selected via corresponding ink model sections as well as a numbers system. Pantone colours are available in all common prepress systems (Adobe, Quark, ESKOArtwork, Dalim). Proof systems also contain libraries for the release of Pantone colours.