Ink coverage / TAC limit
The maximum combined CMYK ink allowed in one spot before the paper gets oversaturated, slow to dry, or prone to smearing.
See it
What it is
Total area coverage, or TAC, is the sum of the CMYK percentages at one point. A shadow built from 80% cyan, 70% magenta, 70% yellow, and 100% black has 320% TAC. The output condition sets a ceiling because too many wet ink layers can saturate the stock, transfer to the next sheet, or dry poorly. Coated sheetfed offset commonly caps near 300%, while ISO 12647-3 puts coldset newsprint at 240%.
The correct ICC output profile normally controls TAC while it separates RGB artwork into CMYK. Adobe Acrobat Pro's Output Preview can then highlight every area above a chosen Total Area Coverage threshold, which is especially useful in rich blacks and deep photographic shadows.
Gotcha: 400% is not a better black. Small black text should normally be 100% K only, and manually pulling equal amounts from all four channels can shift neutral color. Limit ink through the intended output profile, then check the exported PDF rather than trusting the source document.
Ask AI for it
Prepare this artwork for coated offset printing with a 300% TAC ceiling. Convert images through the PSO Coated v3 (FOGRA51) ICC profile, preserve small black text as 0C 0M 0Y 100K, and inspect the exported PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro Output Preview with Total Area Coverage set to 300%. Reduce every highlighted area without crushing shadow detail, then report its original and corrected CMYK build.