Hex to Pantone Converter

How the match is calculated

The tool converts your hex code to RGB, then measures the Euclidean distance — √((r₁-r₂)² + (g₁-g₂)² + (b₁-b₂)²) — from your color to each entry in its reference list, returning whichever is numerically closest.

Worked example

#FF5733 converts to RGB(255, 87, 51). Against this tool's built-in sample colors, the shortest distance (≈63.4) lands on PANTONE 485 C — a brand red — rather than the more orange PANTONE 144 C, which is roughly 75 units away.

An important limitation

This tool checks your color against only 10 reference Pantone shades, not the full Pantone Matching System, which spans over 2,000 spot colors. That means the "closest" match here is closest among a small sample, not necessarily the true nearest Pantone color — for production print work, cross-check against an official Pantone bridge guide or swatch book.

Why hex and Pantone don't map 1:1

Hex/RGB describes light emitted from a screen (additive color); Pantone Solid Coated/Uncoated swatches describe ink printed on paper (subtractive color, with reflectance shifting further depending on stock and coating). Euclidean RGB distance is a reasonable approximation but ignores how the human eye perceives color differences, which is why professional color-matching tools use perceptual spaces like CIELAB (Delta E) instead of raw RGB distance.