HEX to TCX Converter

What is Pantone TCX, and why not just send a HEX code?

TCX is Pantone’s Fashion, Home + Interiors library — the colour system used for apparel, home textiles and interiors. It is a separate library from the PMS numbers used in graphic design and printing, and the difference is physical: PMS is pre-mixed ink printed on paper, TCX is dye on cotton fabric. TCX stands for Textile Cotton eXtended, and every colour ships as a swatch of dyed cotton rather than a printed chip.

That is the answer to why a HEX code is not enough. A HEX value describes light emitted by a screen, and no two screens are calibrated alike. A dye house needs a physical standard it can put next to a lab dip under controlled lighting and judge against. Sending "make it #0F4C81" gives a mill nothing to match to; sending "Pantone 19-4052 TCX" gives them a standard they already own, that Pantone manufactures to a tolerance, and that both sides can point at when a sample comes back wrong.

The six-digit code carries real information, unlike a PMS number. The first two digits are a lightness band from 11 at the lightest to 19 at the deepest, and the next four locate the colour by hue family and chroma. So a supplier reading 19-4052 already knows it is a deep blue. That readability is also useful when you are choosing between the candidates this tool returns — the codes tell you how they relate.

This conversion is a nearest-neighbour search, not a calculation. TCX is a finite library of physical standards, so your screen colour will rarely land exactly on one, and every result here carries a ΔE figure telling you how far away it is. Highly saturated screen colours will match poorly for a real reason: dye on cotton cannot reach the intensity a backlit display can.

Pantone vs Pantone TCX: how they differ

Which Pantone code does your supplier need?

Before you send anything, check which library your supplier works in. Both codes below are Pantone; they are not alternatives to each other, and sending the wrong one costs a sampling round.

Most fashion projects need both: TCX for the garment and PMS for the packaging and print collateral that ships with it.

Who converts HEX to TCX?

This direction is the designer-to-manufacturer handoff: a colour was chosen on screen and now has to become something a mill can dye.

• Building a tech pack — Every colourway on a tech pack needs a TCX reference. Designers picking colours in Illustrator or Figma have to convert before the pack goes to the factory.
• Briefing a mill or dye house — A supplier cannot lab-dip to a HEX value. Giving them a TCX code they already stock removes an entire round of back-and-forth.
• Extending a digital brand into apparel — A brand whose identity was designed on screen needs TCX equivalents before it can produce merchandise or uniforms.
• Matching garments to existing print — Where a garment has to sit alongside printed packaging or signage, the printed colour is the starting point and TCX the destination.
• Home textiles and interiors specification — Cushions, upholstery and soft furnishings are specified in TCX, so an interior scheme built on screen has to be translated.
• Checking whether a colour is dyeable — A high ΔE against the whole TCX library is an early warning that a vivid screen colour will not survive as dye on cotton.

How to use this HEX to TCX converter

Say a designer picked a brand teal in Figma as #0F4C81 and the factory needs a colour reference for the tech pack. Paste the HEX here, take the top TCX code, and put that on the pack — then order the physical cotton swatch and send it with the pack, because the mill will lab-dip against the fabric, not the number.

1. Paste or type your HEX value into the field. Three- and six-digit forms both work, with or without the hash.
2. Read the five closest Pantone TCX codes, ordered from the smallest ΔE*00 colour difference upward.
3. Check the ΔE badge: under 2 is a commercial match, 2–5 is visible side by side, above 5 means no TCX standard is genuinely close.
4. Read the code itself to compare candidates — the lightness band tells you which of two near matches is the deeper one.
5. Copy the TCX code onto your tech pack, written in full including the TCX suffix so the supplier knows which format to match.
6. Order the physical cotton swatch and send it with the pack. The mill lab-dips against fabric, and a number alone leaves room for argument.

Accuracy — read before you specify a colour

Two limits, and both matter before you commit a code to a tech pack. A screen emits light while dyed cotton reflects it off a textured surface, so the two can never look identical and no conversion closes that gap. And the TCX values matched against here are curated public sRGB approximations covering 213 of roughly 2,625 colours, not Pantone's own measurements — so a closer standard may exist outside this set. Always confirm against a physical Pantone cotton swatch before production.

Results are ranked by ΔE*00 (CIEDE2000), computed in CIELAB. Below 1 is imperceptible, 1–2 is a commercial match, 2–5 shows side by side, above 5 reads as a different colour. Expect higher figures for saturated screen colours — dye on cotton simply cannot reach the intensity of a backlit display, so a poor result there is a genuine warning about the material rather than a shortcoming of the search.

In short: conversion values on this page are approximate, because the two systems use different colourants and cover different gamuts. Verify against the official physical colour standard before committing to production, tooling or a signed-off brand spec.

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