Index Tab Colors

The Mylar strip is what you see and what protects the extension. Available colors:

• Neutrals — Clear / White, Grey, Brown
• Reds & pinks — Red, Warm Red, Pink, Coral
• Oranges & yellows — Orange, Light Amber, Yellow, Light Yellow
• Greens — Light Green, Medium Green, Dark Green
• Blues — Light Blue, Medium Blue, Dark Blue
• Purples — Lavender, Purple

Poly tabs are tinted all the way through, so the color is the divider. Each is a stock polyethylene shade rather than a print, which is why they are identified by number as well as name:

• 99 White · 00 Natural · 154 Ivory
• 90 Black · 160 Gray
• 74 Lt. Red · 102 Br. Orange · 67 Br. Yellow
• 11 Blue · 17 Azure · 37 Emerald

On paper tabs, text prints in black and the Mylar colors are chosen light enough to stay legible. On poly, dark colors like Black, Blue and Emerald would swallow black text, so poly offers white ink as well — a choice that exists specifically for the dark end of the palette.

The practical rule: pick the color for how it reads across a room, then pick the ink for how it reads in the hand.

Colors are assigned per tab, so a set can run one color throughout or a different color for every section — that is what makes color-coding possible rather than decorative. A multi-color set carries a one-time $35 color-change charge per additional color, not a per-tab premium, so the cost of a color scheme is fixed no matter how many sets you order.

Which means at volume, color-coding is effectively free: $35 spread across 250 sets is fourteen cents a set.

Two things go wrong with color schemes. Too many colors, so nobody remembers which is which — six is about the ceiling for recognition without reading. And shades too close together, where Light Blue and Medium Blue look identical under office lighting or in a photocopy.

Pick colors from different families rather than different shades of one, write the scheme down, and post it where sets are assembled. Colors chosen once and documented outlast the person who chose them.

Screen color is not print color — Mylar film has a slight sheen and poly is matte, and neither reproduces exactly on a monitor. If a specific shade matters, order the free sample pack and look at the actual material before committing a color scheme to a few hundred sets.