This part of ISO 2846 specifies the colour and transparency characteristics that have to be met by each ink in a process colour ink set intended for proof and production printing using offset lithography. The specified printing conditions (which use a laboratory printability tester), the defined substrate and a method for testing to ensure conformance are also defined. Characteristics are specified for inks used for sheet-fed, heat-set web and radiation-curing processes.

This part of ISO 2846 does not apply to fluorescent inks and it does not specify pigments (or spectral characteristics — except informatively) in order not to preclude developments which may enable different pigment combinations to be used advantageously while still achieving the colorimetric requirements specified in this part of ISO 2846.