Actually SVG does allow for proper CMYK, as does Inkscape. It is just that the export path we use (Cairo) does not support CMYK.

Hi Jon Cruz Its a pity Cairo doesn't support CMYK. I would really like to know how you can convert the colorspace of an svg file, I have exported a CMYK file exported from Illustrator but it has not retained its colourspace. AFAIK editing the xml colour tag in a text editor is the only way to get the svg file to include CMYK or spot colour info, please could you share your method of you do this.

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I agree, but CMYK is not covered in the svg standard. My solution is to import the Inkscape document into Scribus and then export it using pdf X/1-a:2001 as the target format.

Thanks John Culleton, My current work around is to do just that or in most cases I change the colourspace of the pdf (including and especially images) using moonshiner. It doesn't always not retain CMYK colour values for vector objects, it is an extra step I would like to avoid. I was wondering if anyone else has been successful in using Ghostscript to convert the colourspace of a PDF, but integrated into the export dialogue maybe as a plugin. Its a slight hassle to import an SVG file, update the CMYK info on each object,export to PDF, send the file to my local printer, do a proof print with them, change the colour again in Scribus, export to PDF. I guess I will just have to continue along this way of doing things, until I have figured out how to what I want myself :)

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