Jacquard woven fabrics are made from colored yarns and different weaves for designing complex pictorial and other patterning effects. The final visualized color effect is the result of assigning weave designs to different areas of the pattern to be created. The current practice in creating Jacquard woven fabric designs is to produce many samples in a trial-and-error attempt to match artwork colors. An ability to simulate accurately the appearance of a design prior to manufacture is highly desirable to reduce trial-and-error sample production. No automated accurate digital color methodology is yet available to assist designers in matching the patterned woven fabric to the desired artwork. To achieve this, we developed a geometrical model to predict the color contribution of each yarn on the face of the fabric. The geometrical model combined with a Kubelka-Munk based color mixing model allowed the prediction of the reflectance properties of the filial color for a given design. We compared the predicted and experimental values of the reflectance properties for a range of fabrics using the same geometric model with three separate color mixing models. The geometrical model combined with a log-based color mixing model produced reasonable agreement between predicted and measured Delta E-ab, with an average Delta E-ab of approximately five. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 225-232, 2009; Published online in Wiley Intet-Science (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20494