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zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,221

Website

SVG to PDF: how?

Hi,

I designed my own company logo in Inkscape and want to give it as a vector to a publisher to make f.e. my business cards, but as it consists of several objects with gradients, these objects simply are not saved in a PDF, (E)PS or AI.

I read on several sites that this is a problem with Inkscape (and has been for several years now). Is there another program I could use to import the SVG and export to PDF or AI *with* the gradients? Or is the only option really to export it to PNG in 1200x1200?

How can anyone use this as a semi-professional publishing program if this functionality is missing/lacking?

Zl.

Mikko777

Member

From: Suomi, Finland

Registered: 2006-10-30

Posts: 837

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

Well ain't it same to save the file as png then put that png to pdf document?

---

Planet KDE | Opendesktop.org | Chakra Project

N30N

Member

Registered: 2007-04-08

Posts: 273

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

I designed my own company logo in Inkscape and want to give it as a vector to a publisher to make f.e. my business cards, but as it consists of several objects with gradients, these objects simply are not saved in a PDF, (E)PS or AI.

Import your SVG file into Scribus and you should have no problem exporting to PDF.

How can anyone use this as a semi-professional publishing program if this functionality is missing/lacking?

Supporting proprietary formats is not normally a high priority for open source developers. On the other hand the fact that your publisher dose not support SVG is pretty lame.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

Import your SVG file into Scribus and you should have no problem exporting to PDF.

I second Scribus for this. It's not the only tool in the repos that will do this, but it will create extremely high quality PDF files. Although, OpenOffice Draw may be able to do what you want also.

Last edited by skottish (2007-11-14 15:56:23)

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,221

Website

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

OK - scribus encountered the same problem: objects with gradients are not imported. Well, they are imported, but they are invisible. *sigh*

And as far as .svg not being supported by the publisher: ok, but inkscape itself does not provide enough functionality when it comes to printing to be used by a professional publisher.

scribus is supposed to be better at this, but because the gui is so different, I cannot get the hang of it (I cannot even find out how to center an object on the page...). And to say that I'm used to using graphical programs for more than 5 years now (on an amateur-level, admittedly, but still).

And to top it all off: When I import an Inkscape-generated svg-with-gradients into another Inkscape-project, I have to cross fiungers and pray to God that it works. Most times I get the same problem as with scribus: I get an invisible object that I can scale. So I have to go through the same steps again: import the gradient PNG, make a pattern out of it and apply it to the invisble object.

It works, but suffice to say that this is a *very* basic limitation of Inkscape. If no-one here can point me to my mistake, I will have to file a bugreport at the Inkscape-bugtracker.

/EDIT: OO.o Draw is not capable of importing vectorfiles. Bitmaps can be inserted, but as far as I can tell, that's all.

Zl.

Last edited by zenlord (2007-11-14 18:36:10)

PJ

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2005-10-11

Posts: 602

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

Concerning that Inkscape is currently at version 0.45, I am impressed of what they have achieved so far. Karbon (koffice) is another vector drawing program, to bad that it too seems to suffer of similar problems with gradients.

There is however another alternative way to convert from svg to pdf. It might as well fail, it depends on what kind of stuff that is used in the vector image.

1. Save as eps or ps
2. Use ps2pdf (from ghostscript)
3. view result

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,221

Website

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

Concerning that Inkscape is currently at version 0.45, I am impressed of what they have achieved so far.

I agree fullhartedly. It is such an easy and intuïtive program to draw in, and it is recommended by everyone in the linux-community. That's why I find it so hard to believe that gradients (which are everywhere) are so poorly supported. Oh well, over time I guess...

2. Use ps2pdf (from ghostscript)

Same problem. I read somewhere that the export-function doesn't know how to handle gradients, and that's why it always fails to export it to whatever format you'd want...

THX for thinking with me!

Zl.

PJ

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2005-10-11

Posts: 602

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

And to top it all off: When I import an Inkscape-generated svg-with-gradients into another Inkscape-project, I have to cross fiungers and pray to God that it works. Most times I get the same problem as with scribus: I get an invisible object that I can scale. So I have to go through the same steps again: import the gradient PNG, make a pattern out of it and apply it to the invisble object.

I probably should have answer this with my previous post but somehow I forgot. Let say that I edit an svg image, save that file and then make a copy of the file. Then I start changing the copy of the file, finally reallize that I want to import some changes back to the original file. This will work if there is no duplications of define-tags for gradients and colors. I usually solve this problem by the following steps:

1. Duplicate selected objects (ctrl+D).
2. Cut the selected clones link to the original turning it to a standalone object (shift+alt+D).
3. Move the copy away from the original, which at this point is below the copy.
4. Go through all the gradients and make copies of all the gradients and finally select the equivalent copy of every gradient.
5. Remove the original objects.
6. Save the file.
7. Import the svg object to the original file.

It still might fuck up but in my experience it usually doesn't.

N30N

Member

Registered: 2007-04-08

Posts: 273

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

OK - scribus encountered the same problem: objects with gradients are not imported. Well, they are imported, but they are invisible.

It imports and exports gradients exported fine here. Sounds like your SVG file is a bit funky.

as far as .svg not being supported by the publisher: ok, but inkscape itself does not provide enough functionality when it comes to printing to be used by a professional publisher.

I never suggested that they should used Inkscape. SVG is a standard vector format that all high end apps (I've tried) can open. If they accept AI files they should IMO accept SVG's (and yes I know AI files are just PDF's now a days but they must have illustrator about for old version of the format).

I cannot even find out how to center an object on the page

It can be found from the menu bar window>Align and Distribute.

OO.o Draw is not capable of importing vectorfiles. Bitmaps can be inserted, but as far as I can tell, that's all.

It dose support vector formats but you'll to use the SVG Import Filter for SVG's (not tried it myself).

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,221

Website

Re: SVG to PDF: how?

It imports and exports gradients exported fine here. Sounds like your SVG file is a bit funky.

Well, you can find the files I'm talking about here: http://www.synergylaw.be/logo/ . The 'final' logo is a plain black and white one and the final-5-version is the same but with the supplied PNG as a pattern-fill.

I never suggested that they should used Inkscape. SVG is a standard vector format that all high end apps (I've tried) can open. If they accept AI files they should IMO accept SVG's (and yes I know AI files are just PDF's now a days but they must have illustrator about for old version of the format).

Yep, in a perfect world. I have tried to get him to try Inkscape, but now this limitation popped up I cannot expect him to consider using it seriously. I do wonder if Adobe Illustrator or Quark cannot import the svg's I created. Maybe he hasn't used that function yet...

I cannot even find out how to center an object on the page

It can be found from the menu bar window>Align and Distribute.

Yep - thx for pointing it out! In my defense: this is an odd place for this function, but it's there!

OO.o Draw is not capable of importing vectorfiles. Bitmaps can be inserted, but as far as I can tell, that's all.

It dose support vector formats but you'll to use the SVG Import Filter for SVG's (not tried it myself).

THX again - learning a great eal here! Will try it out to produce my PDF!

Zl.