Post LGM notes on PDF and Inkscape2Scribus workflow
During last LGM we have discussed on future development of Inkscape. Among the tasks, we pointed the print-ready PDF request. I mentionned we have 2 opportunities : - as scribus does a print-ready PDF, try to learn from that to develop our own. Discussions with Franz and Andreas have pointed it was not hard in the principle but that cairo might not do it so soon and that Scribus don't provide a library whoch could easily implement it into Inkscape. Andreas has shown interest in helping in a way, and Kryzstof seem to be on the way - i also said that actually we usually import Inkscape documents into Scribus and make the PDF from it. Of course, this is far from being a perfect workflow for it needs few minutes to be done and redone when needed just for an "export". Plus we have issues with Scribus SVG import features which sometimes means come back to a standard PNG export, which is not desired when we decide to use vector. I gave the filter example and this one is really not it the Roadmap because there are many other more important feature to get implement before and that filters are not in PDF so they might be rasterized anyway. Scribus don't provide a command line option that would allow PDF generation on the fly from Inkscape. The situation is improving because Scribus is itself getting getter in SVG support but there are no real plans so that we have no idea when it could be done and the guy working mainly on Postscript and SVG may not be available in the next months. I think that create a better Workflow with Scribus is interesting for many other reasons that get Print-ready PDF for Inkscape. Especially, we'd anyway need to import often vector drawing in Scribus for complex layout. Actually Inkscape is missing many interesting things such as text styles, flowing text around objects, multipage... So we should not imagine Inkscape could replace Scribus as easily. May be that one of the easiest would be exploring by ourselves especially give Scribus files that it can easily read : i guess it's will be easier to get an exporter than an importer - Provide a "Scribus SVG" which contains bitmap data or links so that we could flatten or rasterize everything scribus won't support, choosing the resolution. I didn't check if this could be done in python, especially accessing primitive filters - Provide an exchange format that could help and i'm thinking of OpenRaster. Scribus just begun implemented it in March and i've done some test on it. There is actually no vector support, but this format might be a could beginning point to work with many other softwares too like Krita or Mypaint. I think it would worth to put the effort on ora more that on XCF esport, for example. I can help on this as i can, but i'm not a programmer so i'm slow in coding. I more used in python but i've really done little patch in C++ though never for Inkscape.
CU pygmee
Hello pygmee,
the problem with raster export is that you never know the exact dpi to raster to. Probably you zoom in or zoom out in the application then the dpi might not fit the exact target output. This is not good for any gradients.
Maybe we should add some options to the save svg like: - SVG version - "raster" filter etc. to bitmap - here we need the dpi - import font as SVG text, ...
I would avoid an "other" svg export. We already have inkscape svg and plain svg.
Possibly an extension "prepare svg for scribus" is also a way to go
I do not know what features advances OpenRaster above other raster formats.
my 2ct.
Adib. --
On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 3:04 PM, pygmee <radar.map35@...8...> wrote:
During last LGM we have discussed on future development of Inkscape. Among the tasks, we pointed the print-ready PDF request. I mentionned we have 2 opportunities :
- as scribus does a print-ready PDF, try to learn from that to develop our
own. Discussions with Franz and Andreas have pointed it was not hard in the principle but that cairo might not do it so soon and that Scribus don't provide a library whoch could easily implement it into Inkscape. Andreas has shown interest in helping in a way, and Kryzstof seem to be on the way
- i also said that actually we usually import Inkscape documents into
Scribus and make the PDF from it. Of course, this is far from being a perfect workflow for it needs few minutes to be done and redone when needed just for an "export". Plus we have issues with Scribus SVG import features which sometimes means come back to a standard PNG export, which is not desired when we decide to use vector. I gave the filter example and this one is really not it the Roadmap because there are many other more important feature to get implement before and that filters are not in PDF so they might be rasterized anyway. Scribus don't provide a command line option that would allow PDF generation on the fly from Inkscape. The situation is improving because Scribus is itself getting getter in SVG support but there are no real plans so that we have no idea when it could be done and the guy working mainly on Postscript and SVG may not be available in the next months. I think that create a better Workflow with Scribus is interesting for many other reasons that get Print-ready PDF for Inkscape. Especially, we'd anyway need to import often vector drawing in Scribus for complex layout. Actually Inkscape is missing many interesting things such as text styles, flowing text around objects, multipage... So we should not imagine Inkscape could replace Scribus as easily. May be that one of the easiest would be exploring by ourselves especially give Scribus files that it can easily read : i guess it's will be easier to get an exporter than an importer
- Provide a "Scribus SVG" which contains bitmap data or links so that we
could flatten or rasterize everything scribus won't support, choosing the resolution. I didn't check if this could be done in python, especially accessing primitive filters
- Provide an exchange format that could help and i'm thinking of
OpenRaster. Scribus just begun implemented it in March and i've done some test on it. There is actually no vector support, but this format might be a could beginning point to work with many other softwares too like Krita or Mypaint. I think it would worth to put the effort on ora more that on XCF esport, for example. I can help on this as i can, but i'm not a programmer so i'm slow in coding. I more used in python but i've really done little patch in C++ though never for Inkscape.
CU pygmee
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Hello
the problem with raster export is that you never know the exact dpi to raster to.
of course, this is a real problem for print, zooming is not the usability option i would vote for in this case
Maybe we should add some options to the save svg like:
- SVG version
- "raster" filter etc. to bitmap - here we need the dpi
- import font as SVG text,
yes why not. I can understand this is some kind of regression regarding SVG but as very few software supports filters, being ale to rasterize might improve interoperability
Possibly an extension "prepare svg for scribus" is also a way to go
I would not say only "scribus" :)
I do not know what features advances OpenRaster above other raster formats.
example from : http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/OpenRaster/Draft/LayersStack/ <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <image version="0.0.3" w="300" h="177" xres="600" yres="600"> <stack> <stack x="10"> <stack> <layer name="OpenRaster Logo" src="data/hw.svg" x="5" y="5" /> <text x="50" y="10">Use a Rich Text XML Specification to write cool text in your OpenRaster File</text> </stack> </stack> <!-- filters are syntactically permissible, but not valid for baseline --> <layer name="layer1" src="data/image1.png" /> </stack> </image>
Open raster can embed svg (as far as the software can read it). We could have raster part saved and put in the stack. ORa is xml, so i might be quite easy to make an xslt sheet.
cheers
pygmee
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