Hi.

I wonder what's the different between various SVG formats that Inkscape can save to.

I also noticed that Firefox support Plain SVG as well as Inkscape svg and doesn't seem to differ.

So basically, my question is: When shall I save as
* Plain SVG
* Compressed Inkscape SVGZ
* Compressed Plain SVGZ
* Optimized SVG

Other than output file size, what should I take in consideration when selecting output format?

I did notice two things about Compressed SVGZ:
* Not supported by Firefox (haven't tested with other apps than ff and Inkscape)
* Is not a zip-file containing a xml file inside.
What kind of format is this? Is it a format that only Inkscape can read?


Does Inkscape KNOW what type of svg it opens?
If I open a Plain svg file, will Inkscape automatically save any changes in plain SVG, or will it save the file as Inkscape svg. File extension is the same, so I cannot manually chechk this without knowing what to look for in the file?

Thanks

The main diffrence between "plain svg" and "Inkscape svg" is that Inkscape adds aditional information into its fomat to ease editing within inkscape. This extra information should just be ignored by other viewers. Both are "valid svg" (with the exception of "flowed text" in the case of inkscape svg files" as xml files allow more than one namespace in a file - a plane svg file just contains the svg namespace, whereas an inkscape svg file also contains the inkscape namespaces (used by inkscape), and a metasdata namespace; which can be used to store licence and copywrite information.


Compressed formats:

This just takes the svg file created, uses gzip to compress the file and re-saves it with the svgz file extension.This was first implmented by Adobe to reduce the file size. Gzip is a standeard method for compressing resopnses over the internet, however for Firefox to correctly display the image, it must be sent with the correct mime-type which is unfortunatly not that common for svg images.

Does Inkscape KNOW what type of svg it opens?
If I open a Plain svg file, will Inkscape automatically save any changes in plain SVG, or will it save the file as Inkscape svg. File extension is the same, so I cannot manually chechk this without knowing what to look for in the file?

If you save something as plain svg, then it no longer knows that objects like 3D boxes or stars should be treated diffrently from other paths.
At the moment Inkscape defults back to saving as "Inkscape SVG" every time you open a svg file. - Mostly because it enables eaisere editing in the future.

Oh and there is also "Optimised SVG" further down the list:
(File -> Save As -> Optimised SVG) which passes the svg file through scour, which aims to reduce the filesize as much as possible and add other nicities like viewboxes, which simplifies stretching the image to the size of a page in html

Ok, thanks.

So basically, it's information stored by user in Document Metadata that is not stored in plain svg.

I assume layer and group information is not stored in plain svg. Is that right?

group is as its part of the document structure, layers arent as their just extra info we tag certain groups with. (your layers will essentially still be there as groups.)

Hi.

Another question (really just rephrasing) because I think I still didn't get this all clear:
Is there any possible reasons NOT to save as Plain SVG instead of Inkscape SVG? On simple drawings, I seldom/never use Document Metadata.

If you use any of the shape tools, LPEs, layers, then save as plain it will come back as normal paths. Unless your really pushed for disk space, or are uploading it, saving as inkscape SVG keeps it more editable.
inkscape SVG should still render identically in firefox etc as the extra info is in the inkscape namespace which other renderers will ignore.
If your planning on editing the file further, then I'd recommend keeping it as inkscape svg.

Ok, I got it now.

Thanks a lot