Hi Friends,
It's been my understanding that SVG images cannot be converted to PDF using Inkscape, without losing gradients, filters or blurs that might be used in the image. (Simple SVG images, without those features, are easily converted by Inskcape.) But it has been suggested to me that importing such an image into Scribus, and then converting to PDF, would be a good way to accomplish this. I've seen this recommended for other forum members/visitors as wel. (And in fact, trusting that recommendation, I've also sugggested it )

So now I've finally gotten around to seriously looking at Scribus. I'm trying to create a tutorial by importing text from OpenOffice Writer, and SVG images from Inkscape. I made some comments about this effort yesterday in this topic viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5927. Despite the disappointment that I voiced in that topic, I still thought I could use Scribus to make my "tutorial.pdf".

Having successfully imported the text last night, tonight I have set about to import the images, and place them as I want in the Scribus layout. The first thing I did was open up the Help menu > Manual, and read about importing SVGs. Unfortunately, my disappointment is continued, and honestly multiplied now. Here is a screen snip/cap:



As you can see what I've highlighted, not all gradients are supported, and neither are clipping and masking! So, it appears now that Scribus is NOT the answer to converting SVG to PDF, where Inkscape's own conversion is lacking. Now I should clearly say that my comments are based on what I've read at this point, and that I haven't actually experimented with importing SVG to Scribus. I will do so soon, probably later tonight.

But for now, I just wanted to start a dialog, and try to hash out how to convert Inkscape SVG images to PDF, if they contain gradients, clipping and/or masking (and possibly still filters and/or blurs). After my experience the last couple of days with Scribus, I suspect I will find it doesn't do exactly what it's said to do. (And of course text would be a whole other discussion, perhaps for another topic?) And if Scribus is not the answer, what is?

As it turns out, the tutorial that I'm writing is intended to add to this topic: Inkscape Frequently Asked Questions - please read! to address the many, many questions that are posted about transparency and cropping. It looks like it's going to be 4 to 5 pages long, including illustrations. And of course I've used Clipping in almost all the illustrations! And note that I have a list of repeatedly asked questions, for which I hope to write overviews -- one of them being How To Save My SVG as PDF. So any info learned here, will eventually benefit many

Thanks for any and all comments -- greatly appreciated

brynn wrote:It's been my understanding that SVG images cannot be converted to PDF using Inkscape, without losing gradients, filters or blurs that might be used in the image.

Have you actually tried saving a copy as "Portable Document Format (*.pdf)" with a current version of Inkscape? All those types are supported since Inkscape 0.47 and converted to PDF, keeping the appearance as close as possible to how the SVG file renders on canvas. The PDF file format supports transparency and gradients for vector objects; blurred objects and those with other SVG filter effects applied are converted to bitmap during the export (you can set the dpi resolution in the export options dialog).

Oh, thanks ~suv, I don't know why I didn't see this the other day...

Actually I'm going from info I've read in the forums, that SVG to PDF often results in loss of the parts of an image containing gradients, filters or blurs. I have not actually tried it. I've read the info at the link you provided. Some of it was too technical for me to understand, but I think I understand it in general. And I certainly will study it further, before trying to write a tut.

Anyway, I will definitely go ahead and try a direct SVG to PDF, and report results. Thanks again

Edit -- Successful conversion regarding blurs
(no test on gradients or other filters)

Hey Brynn and SUV!

Wow! Great to post you guys here!

I was just trying to make a PDF myself and am currently (on my other comfuser) saving as PDF using Illustrator. I wonder if it will work? I just tried saving an empty document with Scribus and it said it cannot. I posted that question as a new topic. I also like to use Preview (on my Mac) to open files and save as PDF. I know there is a workaround. I still haven't found it as I am in the middle of it right now! LOL

I got a green (drab) image once (My 1st post) with a random PDF image I got online. Then, today, I opened an image in Scribus which had vector's I had traced, a png imported picture, and two imported objects that wouldn't trace well. The two objects (that didn't trace well) were saved as plain SVG, but were originally png images. The image (when opened with Scribus) was (drab) purple on everything but the traced vectors! I'm thinking maybe both InkScape (for MacPPC) and Scribus both like to have true vector images to display properly.

As soon as I find a solution, I will let yall know! K. Thank you very much! Jaso