Convert CMYK to HEX Cyan Magenta Yellow Black ↔ Hexadecimal Free Online Secure
Type a value in CMYK and read it in HEX at once. The arithmetic happens in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and what the conversion depends on is written out below rather than assumed.
Nothing uploaded
Where these notations come from
Hex and RGB are the same thing written twice. A screen colour is three numbers — how much red, green and blue light to emit — each from 0 to 255, which is one byte; hex simply writes those bytes in base sixteen, so #FF8800 and rgb(255, 136, 0) are the same instruction to the same pixel. HSL was invented because neither is readable by a human: it gives hue as an angle around a colour wheel, with saturation and lightness as percentages, so a designer can make something lighter without recomputing three figures. CMYK belongs to a different world altogether — ink rather than light. It is subtractive, built from four printing plates, and it cannot reach every colour a screen can, because a screen emits light while paper only reflects it.
Where you meet them
Hex is what you type into a stylesheet and what a design tool hands you. RGB appears wherever a colour needs arithmetic — gradients, transparency, code that computes a shade. HSL is what you reach for when adjusting a palette by hand, because the changes you want are usually changes of one of its three numbers. CMYK is what a printer asks for, and converting into it is the moment a design stops being light and becomes ink.
Questions people ask
Why does my CMYK result differ from what my printer gives me?
Because there is no single correct conversion. The arithmetic on this page is the simple, device-independent one, which is the right answer when you need a starting point or a rough equivalent. A print shop converts through a colour profile that accounts for the specific ink, paper and press, and the same RGB colour will produce different CMYK values on glossy stock than on uncoated. For anything that must match, ask the printer for their profile rather than trusting a formula.
Why can't some screen colours be printed?
Because the two cannot reach the same colours. A screen makes colour by adding light and can produce a vivid, saturated cyan or green that ink simply cannot match; paper makes colour by absorbing light, and the brightest it can ever be is the white of the page. The set of colours each can reach is called its gamut, and where they do not overlap, a conversion has to choose the nearest available colour. That is why a bright screen colour often looks slightly dulled in print.
Is the answer exact?
Where both units are defined in terms of one another by whole numbers, yes — the page says so above the figure, and the only rounding is in how many digits are shown. Where the ratio has no finite decimal, the page shows twelve significant digits and says the relation is approximate rather than pretending otherwise.
Does anything I type leave my device?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no server to upload it to. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network switched off.
Why you convert CMYK to HEX
Print people write colours in four numbers, web people write them in one short code. Somewhere between the two, a job sheet says the accent of a catalogue is 0, 60, 100, 0 and a developer needs to know what to type after the hash sign in the stylesheet. Or a print designer has been asked for the web colour of a brand whose guide lists only CMYK. Or an e-mail template needs the same orange as last season's flyer. In each case, the way across is to convert CMYK to HEX: you take the four percentages of ink and arrive at the six-digit code that a browser understands.
The conversion has two steps, both of which this page performs for you: from ink to the red, green and blue light that a screen would show, and from those three numbers to their hex spelling. The second step is exact. The first is a standard formula, the one nearly every web tool uses, and it has honest limits. Ink on paper and light on a screen are different things, and converting faithfully between them needs the profile of the press, of the paper and of your monitor. Without those, the code you get is a good starting point and not a promise of a match. The page says so plainly.
The calculation happens in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. Below you will find the two steps with a worked example, what the conversion keeps and what it cannot, the reasons a screen colour from this formula is brighter than its printed ancestor, the situations in which people need to convert CMYK to HEX, and a short guide to settling on one web colour for a print brand.
How the conversion works
Step one: from ink to light
Each ink acts as a filter that takes some light away. Cyan takes away red, magenta takes away green, yellow takes away blue, and black takes away a share of all three. The formula is R = 255 × (1 − C) × (1 − K), and likewise for green with magenta and for blue with yellow. For cmyk(0%, 60%, 100%, 0%), black is zero, so the black factor is 1. Red is 255 × 1 × 1 = 255. Green is 255 × 0.4 × 1 = 102. Blue is 255 × 0 × 1 = 0. The screen colour is rgb(255, 102, 0).
Step two: from three numbers to a code
Each number is written in base sixteen with two digits: 255 is FF, 102 is 66 and 0 is 00. Put together with a hash sign, the code is #FF6600, a vivid orange. The second step is exact: hex is only another way of writing the same three numbers.
Whole numbers and whole percents
The four inputs are whole percents, and the three outputs are rounded to whole numbers from 0 to 255. Both roundings are small, but they mean that the colour will not always return to exactly the same percentages if you convert it back.
What the conversion keeps and what it cannot
It keeps the colour as close as a formula can
The result is the colour as close as a formula can put it, and the four plates in the order a printer expects them: cyan, magenta, yellow and the black that carries the shadows. Black is applied to all three channels, which is how a layer of black ink darkens whatever lies beneath it.
The honest limit: there is no single correct answer
This is the limit of the whole page. A faithful conversion needs the profile of the press, of the paper and of your monitor. Without those, what you get is the standard formula: good enough to pick a colour on screen, not good enough to claim that the web colour and the printed colour are the same. Treat the code as a starting point, compare it with a printed sample in daylight and adjust.
What the formula cannot carry
A rich black mixed from several inks comes through as one flat dark colour. A spot colour such as a Pantone ink has no CMYK equivalent at all, so a four-colour breakdown of it is already an approximation, and the hex from that breakdown is an approximation of an approximation. If the brand colour is a spot ink, look for the screen value that its maker publishes.
The round trip is not exact
Because the four numbers are written as whole percents, a colour taken across and back can land one step away: #5A4632 returns as #594632. Keep the original as the master and convert only in one direction.
Why the formula's colours look brighter than print
Paper takes light away
Paper reflects only part of the light that falls on it, and no ink is a perfect filter, so every printed colour is darker and duller than the formula suggests. A screen shines, and the code you get from this page appears brighter and cleaner than the print it was derived from.
Pure inks are not what the formula assumes
The formula treats 100% cyan as pure cyan, rgb(0, 255, 255). A real cyan ink is deeper and closer to rgb(0, 174, 239). The strongest colours, those with high ink values, are where the formula and the print part company most.
Soft proofs do better
Layout programs can use the ICC profile of a press to simulate the print on screen. If you have access to one, the hex code you take from a soft proof is closer to the print than the one from this page. Use this page for the quick answer and the profile for the final one.
Where you meet the conversion
Specifying a web colour for a print brand
A brand defined for print has CMYK values. To use it on the web, a designer converts CMYK to HEX, puts the code in the stylesheet and checks against a printed sample. The agreed code goes into the brand sheet beside the CMYK.
E-mail templates and documents
E-mail clients and office programs take hex codes. When a template has to match a printed piece, the conversion gives a code to start from.
Social media and presentations
Graphics for social media, slides and videos live on screens. A colour taken from a printed flyer must be turned into a screen code before it can be used there.
Talking to colleagues
A hex code is short and universal. If you need to tell a web developer which orange the print team means, the code is the form they can use at once.
How to convert CMYK to HEX here
Type the four percentages
Enter the colour in the first field in the form cmyk(0%, 60%, 100%, 0%), or just the four numbers separated by commas or spaces.
Read the hex code
The answer appears at once, as in cmyk(0%, 60%, 100%, 0%) = #FF6600. It is written in capital letters with a hash sign.
Check against the print
Hold a printed sample next to the screen in daylight. If the screen looks brighter, lower the saturation a little and record the code you settle on.
Where these notations come from
Hex and RGB are the same thing written twice
A screen colour is three numbers, how much red, green and blue light to emit, each from 0 to 255, which is one byte. Hex simply writes those bytes in base sixteen. To see the numbers behind a code, convert HEX to RGB.
HSL and CMYK
HSL was invented because neither is readable by a human: it gives hue as an angle around a colour wheel, with saturation and lightness as percentages, so a designer can make something lighter without recomputing three figures. CMYK belongs to a different world altogether, ink rather than light. It is subtractive, built from four printing plates, and it cannot reach every colour a screen can, because a screen emits light while paper only reflects it.
Traps when you convert CMYK to HEX
Expecting the printed colour on screen
The code will be close in hue and brighter than the print. Compare under daylight against a sample.
Using 100% black as the text colour
The formula gives #000000. Printed black is softer. If you want the same impression on screen, choose a very dark grey such as #141414.
Converting back and forth
Each step in either direction adds error. Choose one master, and derive the other from it once.
Forgetting the spot colour
A Pantone ink has an official screen value. Use it in place of the formula's guess.
Questions people ask before converting
What is cmyk(0%, 0%, 0%, 0%) in hex?
#FFFFFF, white: no ink on white paper.
What is cmyk(0%, 0%, 0%, 100%) in hex?
#000000, black by the formula, although printed black is less deep.
Why does my web colour look different from my brochure?
Because the two are made differently: light and ink. Paper, press and lighting all change the print, and the formula knows none of them.
Is the conversion exact?
The arithmetic is exact on a simplified model. The match with the print is approximate.
Is my colour uploaded?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
How do I go back?
With HEX to CMYK.
Settling on one web colour for a print brand
Start from the formula, finish by eye
Convert CMYK to HEX to get a base. Then, in daylight, compare the screen with a printed sample and adjust the code until the impression is the same. The result is a web colour that belongs to the brand and not to a formula.
Record how you got it
In the brand sheet, note that the hex was matched by eye against a given sample on a given date. A future designer who wonders why it differs from the formula's value will then have the answer.
Use it everywhere
Once chosen, the code should appear in the website, the e-mail templates, the presentations and the social media kit. One colour in many places is what makes a brand look consistent.
Review when the print changes
If the brand is reprinted on a different paper or press, the printed colour may shift, and the match should be rechecked. A brand colour is a pair of values, one for each medium, and both should be revisited together.
Practical habits when you convert CMYK to HEX
Convert CMYK to HEX one colour at a time and note the result
A brand usually has between three and eight colours. Convert CMYK to HEX for each, and write the answers in a table with the CMYK beside them and a column for the matched code. The table takes ten minutes to make and saves hours of guessing later. If a colour is added or changed, only one row needs to be redone.
Give each colour a role
Name the colours by what they do: primary, accent, text, surface. A hex code alone says nothing about where to use it, and a name does. In the stylesheet, define the codes as custom properties with those names, so that a change to the brand means editing a few lines.
Check text on colour
Once the codes exist, test every text and background pair for contrast. Print colours that read well on paper can fail on screen, where the background shines and the text must stand out against it. The hex codes go straight into any contrast checker.
Mind dark and saturated colours
The brightest print colours, deep blues and vivid greens especially, are the ones that look most different from their formula values. If your brand has one, convert CMYK to HEX, then look at the screen next to the print and expect to adjust by a few steps.
Keep the CMYK in the file name or the notes
When you save an image or a document made with a converted colour, note which CMYK it came from. If the brand is reprinted or the press changes, the record lets you redo the conversion with a clear conscience.
A note on shorthand and transparency
Short codes
Where the three pairs of the answer repeat, such as #FF6600, you may write the short form #F60 in a stylesheet. It is the same colour, and some people find it easier to read. The page gives the long form, which is always valid.
Transparency
Print has no transparency of this kind, so the answer here is always an opaque colour. If you need a translucent version for a web overlay, take the code and add an alpha pair, for example #FF660080 for half strength.
Related converters
The same family of tools covers the neighbouring conversions. To go back, use HEX to CMYK. For the RGB numbers directly, there are CMYK to RGB and RGB to CMYK, and for the screen notations themselves, HEX to RGB, RGB to HEX and HEX to HSL. For files that travel to the printer, compress PDF makes a document lighter.
A worked example
Say last season's flyer used an orange of cmyk(0%, 60%, 100%, 0%), and the web team needs it for the new season's landing page. You type the four numbers and read #FF6600. On the page the orange is bright and hot. Held beside the flyer in daylight, the screen colour is clearly more vivid, so the designer softens it to #F26B0F and records the match. The CMYK stays the master for print, the matched hex is the master for the web, and the formula's #FF6600 is noted in the brand sheet as the starting point.
A short checklist
Before converting
Check that the colour is process CMYK and not a spot ink. Find a printed sample if you can.
While converting
Type the four percentages, read the code and copy it with its hash sign.
After converting
Compare against the sample in daylight, adjust by eye if needed and record the final code with a note on how it was obtained.
Common mistakes
Treating the formula as final
It is a starting point. The print decides.
Using pure black for text
Printed black is softer. Choose a dark grey if you want the same impression.
Converting in circles
Go once from the original and keep the result.
Your colours stay on your device
The calculation happens locally. Your values are used by your own browser and nothing is sent anywhere. There is nothing to delete afterwards and no account to create. That is the plain way to convert CMYK to HEX.
Summary
To convert CMYK to HEX here, type the four percentages and read the hex code at once. The conversion takes two steps: from ink to the red, green and blue light a screen would show, by a standard formula, and from those three numbers to their hex spelling, which is exact. There is no single correct answer for the first step, because ink on paper and light on a screen are different things, and converting faithfully needs the profile of the press, of the paper and of your monitor. A rich black comes through as one flat dark colour, a spot colour has no CMYK equivalent, and whole percents mean a round trip can land a step away. Treat the code as a starting point and compare it with a printed sample. Nothing is uploaded.