Imported PDF element does not export back in PDF

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Decatheron
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:13 pm

Imported PDF element does not export back in PDF

Postby Decatheron » Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:35 pm

Hi,

I have started using Inkscape for my Thesis figure, and I have these graphs from a specialized program that are in PDF.
So I imported these PDF in Inkscape to arrange them. I did my thing, and then wanted to save the file as PDF (I am requested to do so).
But then, part of the object I try to export is absent or produce a black square.
Following instructions in threads I could find, I tried to suppress potential filters, apply a background or ungroup the objects but nothing worked.
The only things that worked was to apply a filter to the points containing object, and to check the Rasterize box during export. But then, I don't have a vector object, which is kind of what I want.
I don't understand why something, that was a vector object in a PDF, is not exporting back the same as it was.

Please find my svg here :
[urlhttps://send.firefox.com/download/4d97d19c0e95305a/#p6bLlcZMl9F9wZOlaBe6Pw[/url]

If you have suggestions, I am all ears
Thank,
Paul

Moini
Posts: 3381
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:44 am

Re: Imported PDF element does not export back in PDF

Postby Moini » Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:06 am

Link is https://send.firefox.com/download/4d97d ... wZOlaBe6Pw

Bad news: all the dots are actually raster images. Only the curves, axes and text are vector.

To export properly:

1. Ungroup. As often as you can. Until nothing is grouped anymore. This will get rid of all the unnecessary masking, which is what makes Inkscape stumble.

2. On the images with the dots that will render blurry in a pdf, right-click > Object Properties > Image rendering : blocky to make them appear non-blurry. Or vectorize them.

3. One object seems to move when I ungroup, it seems to me that you can safely delete it.
Something doesn't work? - Keeping an eye on the status bar can save you a lot of time!

Inkscape FAQ - Learning Resources - Website with tutorials (German and English)

Decatheron
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:13 pm

Re: Imported PDF element does not export back in PDF

Postby Decatheron » Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:15 am

Thank you for your help,
There were multiple problems :
    1. Many many groups that prevented me to select the image, which I did not notice before
    2. The image also had a mask (don't ask me why) and was in fact composed of white dots on a black background and a black rectangle of the same size subtracted one to another.

So I had to properly ungroup the most I could (sooo many groups), select the image, remove the mask, remove the extra black rectangle, apply the invert color filter to the image (to get black dot over white background) and finally move the said image bellow the rest of the graph. Then, when exporting into pdf, everything looks fine.

It is certainly not the most elegant way to proceed, I just did not succeed into vectorising the image, or to change the background to a transparent one. Also, some groups seemed to resist ungroup, I could not figure why (Arborescence looks like g9494/g9492/g9490/g9488/image9515, so basically one image in multiple stacked groups).

The graphs are export from the FlowJo cytometry software if anyone encounter the same troubles as me.

Moini
Posts: 3381
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:44 am

Re: Imported PDF element does not export back in PDF

Postby Moini » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:29 am

... Mmmh. All I did was repeated ungrouping. I did not have to remove any masks, they went away on their own during ungrouping.

So, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+Shift+G * 10 or so.
Something doesn't work? - Keeping an eye on the status bar can save you a lot of time!

Inkscape FAQ - Learning Resources - Website with tutorials (German and English)


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