Any idea why Inkscape uses PDF 1.4 instead of a new version? I believe we're coming up on PDF 2.0 now.

Layered PDFs and other really complex drawings simply don't properly save as PDFs from Inkscape. A real hindrance.

EricWarnke wrote:Any idea why Inkscape uses PDF 1.4 instead of a new version?

Patches are welcome. ;)

EricWarnke wrote:Any idea why Inkscape uses PDF 1.4 instead of a new version? I believe we're coming up on PDF 2.0 now.

Layered PDFs and other really complex drawings simply don't properly save as PDFs from Inkscape. A real hindrance.

On a more serious note - it not only depends on having support for newer PDF features coded in Inkscape, but also on the version of cairo used by Inkscape on each OS/platform/installation. Inkscape 0.48.1 for Windows for example still includes cairo 1.8.8 (limited to PDF 1.4 AFAIU) - on a platform with a newer version of cairo (≥ 1.10.0), you can choose between PDF 1.4 and PDF 1.5 in Inkscape's PDF export options (though for now it's just the file format, Inkscape doesn't yet support any specific features new to PDF 1.5 or later versions, see bug #664335, comment #9).

There are several feature requests filed asking for support of additional and/or newer PDF features (as you already noticed ;-) ):

• Bug #220502 “PDF multilayers”
• Bug #449453 “Inkscape needs more options for saving PDF”
• Bug #597552 “PDF export exceeds PDF 1.4 dimensions”
• Bug #704087 “PDF 1.5 Layers compatibility”

and possibly others…