Hello,

I am rather new to Inkscape but I´ve been working with CorelDraw and Illustrator in the past so I´m perhaps not a total newbie. As I didn´t want to use unlicensed software for my new private project I decided to do it in Inkscape. My project is about creating material to be photo-etched, so nothing much fancy, just paths, objects, swatches and one fill pattern, in the end everything either 100% black or 100% white. My target producer can only use Illustrator 10 files so I made a simple test first with importing a test SVG file into Illustrator CS6 and converting it there and it worked fine. So I used Inkscape to create what I needed and spent over a month on it, my file now has about 15MB. Today I tried to import my SVG into Illustrator and it repeatedly crashed. Okay, that happens, so I wanted to solve it via exporting EPS from Inkscape but all attempts (even with just parts of the model) ended with a blank EPS file (2457 bytes), same with PDF and PS. I upgraded from .92.3 to current 0.92.4, to no avail, even tried installing 32-bit version instead of 64-bit. I searched the web and tried several other methods like using online converters to convert from SVG (like https://www.aconvert.com/image/svg-to-eps/ or https://cloudconvert.com/svg-to-eps or https://convertio.co/svg-eps/) but it did not help - either an empty file was created or it all ended with an error message (last site: Unknown Error occurred. Try again.). Tried to import my file into a completely new Inkscape file with the same result, the same with copy&paste. It seems there´s something wrong with my model, but Inkscape works with it properly and even SVGOMG site (https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/) reads and displays it ok, just even the SVG file streamlined by SVGOMG would not work in converters (Edit: still it gets much smaller - down to 4MB!). Now I´m lost and would be grateful for any solution. I just hope I would not have to do my month´s work all over again

Thanks!

I shared sample part of my file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/49r84771m686c ... e.svg?dl=0
It´s quite strange - contains just a few simple parts and it´s 2MB large, I must have done something wrong, but what was it and how would I repair it?

15MB is kinda large for a vector file. I'd try using the "clean document" tool in the File menu to see if that helps. I'd then try to save as PDF.

If you're willing to let me look at the original svg file, you can PM me.

Hello,

thanks for your reply. I tried the File - Clean up document option but it reduced the file only by some 300k and the problem persisted. It actually happens even if I copy&paste just one part from the large file into a completely new document!

Please find a sample from my file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/49r84771m686c ... e.svg?dl=0. I posted it in reply to my first post already last evening but it did not show up.

Thanks!

Vladi wrote:I posted it in reply to my first post already last evening but it did not show up.

New users' first few posts have to be passed by moderators before they appear on this site - and that includes edits to already accepted posts. You just happened to post at a time when there were no moderators around to approve them. They should all be appearing in this thread now, sorry for the delay.

Thanks, no problem

You should play the lottery... you hit a bug right off the bat. PDF export does not handle swatches at the moment.

Plus, there are more efficient ways to use repeating elements... check out clones and tiled-clones in the manual.

Plus, there are better ways to build the elements, but that will come with more experience.

Plus, there are a couple of 0-character flowed-text elements not needed. That's a nitpick.

You can rescue the completed work, but it might take a few hours, if I'm rightly guessing you have 10x what was in the sample.

The way to get around the swatch problem, is to substitute all the swatch colors in the artwork with colors picked from a custom palette. I have saved one for you, to put in your user profile.

You can use the "select-same" (fill or stroke) to select en masse and assign color from the custom palette. To ensure all the instances of swatches are gone from the artwork, use clean-document to see if the swatch is gone from the swatch panel. If a color remains in the swatch panel, it is still in use somewhere in the artwork. Some objects have tiny strokes that are tricky to find.

Attached is a pdf to show it works.


Here is a palette file to put in the user profile before launching Inkscape:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gi1g3yin25cgu ... e.gpl?dl=0

Here's the sample file redone using the custom palette:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kn3hf4vgmxrdz ... e.svg?dl=0

Thanks a lot! I feel no joy in hitting bugs but it somehow happens, it seems, not just once.

I fully agree to your remark about cloning, I only found this feature when I was nearly ready and I will certainly use it in the future.

I followed your instructions, replaced all swatches with colours from your custom palette, that was fairly quick. Select Same... worked perfectly, no more swatches appear in the Swatch menu anymore. But... export to PDF actually yielded only very few objects (mainly text). I am sending you my full file via PM and the pdf in a minute. Would you be so kind, please, and have a look at it once more?

Will do.

OK, here's what I would try...

In the Inkscape XML editor, expand the "defs" section, and for each gradient that has a gradient transform with a matrix, delete that transform. Clean and save. Save a copy as pdf and see if it helps.



I don't know how to get the transform matrix to apply in the first place, to find how to avoid it. Maybe another reader has an idea.

DONE!

So this was really not the most creative task I´ve ever done , there were thousands of such transforms there, my right hand is aching... But it paid off, the PDF now seems to contain what was expected (subject to further cros-check) and even the SVG previews in Dropbox (I uploaded both files after mod to the same place, links from the PM now lead to them).

But most importantly I´ve given a try to import the SVG directly into Illustrator - and it seems to work! Even no sideway via EPS was needed.

So thanks a lot for this moment. I will now modify the file colours (vial Select Same...) to create adverse and reverse side stencils and hopefully it will all work. I just hope I would not have to do this manual xml editing again

BIG THANKS, Sir!

You're welcome. Glad to hear it's moving forward.

Hopefully, we'll get more insight into the issue and get it resolved.

I´ve been thinking about a possible cause (if it was me ), perhaps just a hint to consider. When I was trying to create etching outlines for already prepared parts I tried using the Outline functions but they did not seem to work. I did Undo but perhaps not after all unsuccessful attempts. Could this have created the amount of gradient transforms?

Outlines are probably not the issue, but thanks for chiming back.

It seems a simple matter of creating a swatch, then move & scale the object that's using the swatch color, but getting it to fail predictably in a PDF is my next challenge.

TD

Fingers crossed! Inkscape is a great product and there´s no software without bugs.
I´ve been saying for years that if cars were as reliable as office software most of us would have been dead already. But now with all of that software in cars already...