Hi everybody,

First off, I have to say that I am a totally newbie in both drawing and Inkscape. I can't understand a lot of technical terms used in this forum. I have never used a drawing software before. I have browsed for two days for an answer to my questions. While I found some threads that are somewhat related to my question, they are still too technical for me to understand. So I really apologize if I'm repeating the same questions that have already been discussed in this forum.

I'm writing a Children's book. I'm doing the illustrations one by one. I'm drawing using pencils. I scanned some of them and since the colors look pale and actually some of the colors didn't appear at all, I was advised to try a computer software to enhance the colors. I searched the web and found Inkscape. While it's not easy to do that, I'm learning how to add some colors to my drawings by using the tutorials. The only problem I'm having is saving my file. I created a drawing using Inkscape that I was planning on using on my website. I saved it on my computer and when I tried to insert it in my website, I couldn't as it wasn't saved in the proper format. I read the thread about saving and opening files in Inkscape, but I couldn't find the right answer. My question is how can I save my drawings in a PDF format. I tried to do the save as a PDF but it didn't work.


I'm using a Mac OS X, Version 10.5.8 (9L31a).

I hope I have been clear enough.
Thanks in advance.

Lila

I don't know why the PDF export isn't working for you. But it's not clear to me why you want PDF. For an image on a website, you should normally use PNG, JPEG or GIF. Inkscape can't produce JPEG or GIF files, but it can produce PNG files using the Export Bitmap option on the File menu.

My question is how can I save my drawings in a PDF format. I tried to do the save as a PDF but it didn't work.

When you did Save As PDF, and the Save As dialog opened, you typed the file name with .pdf on the end. Then did you also choose pdf from the Save As Type: dropdown menu? If you don't do that, you'll get your filename.pdf.svg, and you end up with an SVG file.

Does this help?

Brynn: Thank you so much for your answer.
I did exactly what you said. But then I got a message (The file "drawing 1.Pdf" was saved with a format (org.inskscape. output.svg.inkscape) that may cause data loss) and then it asked whether I wanted to save it as an .svg file.

Sas: You're right in the sense that I jumped from the drawing that I wanted to insert in my website to the PDF file without explanations. In fact, in order to publish my book, I need to put all my illustrations and my story in a PDF format. That's why it's crucial for me to save my drawings in a PDF file.
As for the website, I tried to export bitmap from the file menu, but it asks me to write a file name. I don't know which name I have to put. I thought first that it was the name I give to my drawing to save it but it doesn't look that way. I honestly have no clue how to save the drawing in my desktop to be able to retrieve it when I need to insert it in my website.

Thank you so much for your answers both of you.

I don't know exactly the right terminology to say this. But it may be that not everything that Inkscape does can be converted to PDF. It may be that Inkscape is lacking in some way (or that PDF is lacking where it compares to Inkscape)? You may need to use a different program. I know I've made some simple paths (simple line drawings, no color) and converted with no problem. But it may be that you're asking it to do something that it can't do. Someone else will need to chime in here, because I'm at a loss as to specifics.

But I do have a couple more thoughts. Have you ever saved it as SVG? I can't explain why this might help, because I don't really know if it will -- but if you make a drawing from scratch, and try to save directly as PDF...well, maybe saving as SVG, THEN save as PDF, might work????

When you Export Bitmap, where it asks for the file name, what it's showing you is the file path, with .png on the end. It's probably ok to go ahead and leave it like it is, BUT not always. But do you know what I mean by file path? Hhm, I think you said you're using a Mac, so I don't know if the file path looks the same as mine on Windows. But it's probably something like this - your local C drive:\documents\pictures\kidsbook\images\drawing1.png It's the path you take when you locate your image in the place where you've saved it.

So the Export Bitmap dialog offers what it thinks is the place where you will want to save it. In my experience, it isn't always exactly right. But it's usually pretty close. Anyway, if you click the Browse button, you can show the dialog where you want to put it, rather than typing it all out, or editing the path manually.

Wish I could be more help

Hi Lila
The quick and sad answer to your question is that there is no vector to PDF converter that will preserve and display all the features of SVG files. In particular ; gradients, blurs, pattern fills and patterns on paths will just kind of vanish ... some, and, I emphasize some, converters can handle masks and clips. Special geometry objects will also not render consistently, and filter objects - well, even Inkscape doesn't know what to do with them sometimes. This is not a complete list.
The solution for those who need PDF files is to make a high - very high - resolution bitmap export and then make a PDF from that. I recommend 900 - 1500 dpi. This naturally results in a rather large file. However you can compress these files pretty effectively with 7zip.

Alternatively, you could go through your vector file and remove or convert everything to simple one color fills and strokes. for blurs use an interpolated group and convert it to paths. do the same for gradients if your converter can't handle them. Some converters can hadle two color gradients but balk at more than that.

Download and try as many converters as you can. The freeware ones are no worse than the commercial ones.

Good luck with your project.

druban wrote:In particular ; gradients, blurs, pattern fills and patterns on paths will just kind of vanish ...

???

Which Inkscape version are you using? ;-)

Seriously - can you expand on this blanket statement? I think that's not an adequate description of Inkscape 0.47 export-to-PDF features.

[ if you didn't mean to include Inkscape 0.47 in your posting about the state of current converters, consider my question withdrawn ;-) ]

First off, let me thank you for the time you all took to help me solve my problem

I will try what Byrnn and Druban have suggested although, I'm a little confused about a lot of words that have been used knowing that I have no previous experience with drawing softwares.

I read the tutorials and I have to say that eventhough they are very well written and thorough for the most part, they don't make it easy for complete beginners to understand how to go step by step. That's why I would like to know whether there are courses that explain how to use Inkscape. I am willing to pay for a course that shows me how to use Inkscape on my computer. I want to use Inkscape mainly to enhance my drawings because when I scan my drawings, I lose the colors and the shadings.

Again, I can't thank you enough, especially Byrnn, for your patience and kindness. I know it mustn't be easy to explain things without using technical words.

Please accept my apologies if my previous comment in reference to druban's posting was off-topic in this thread!

onthepath wrote:I want to use Inkscape mainly to enhance my drawings because when I scan my drawings, I lose the colors and the shadings.

Others will be able to explain it better - but considering your goal to edit scanned raster images I think Inkscape is not the most adequate software available. You might search for more information about using GIMP, a free and opensource raster image editor which is far more suited for a task like this IMHO. There is a well maintained OS X version available. The GIMP site also offers a list of GIMP tutorials for different tasks and levels.

Suv, thank you so much:) I will try that and hopefully it will be more accessible for me. If not, I will stick with Inkscape and see if I'll get used to it.
Thank you all for your outstanding help

I don't know if you're still watching this topic or not, but I've just tried Save As PDF again, for one of my projects. Again, they are just paths, with no fills, but it still might work for you.

So after I did the Save As dialog, I saved the document again (just using the Save button), just out of habit, and I too got the same message you did

"(The file "drawing 1.Pdf" was saved with a format (org.inskscape. output.svg.inkscape) that may cause data loss)"

But I did not notice the text in that message at 1st. At 1st I just noticed the options it presented -- Close without saving, Cancel, or Save SVG. And I thought, that's weird because I just now saved the doc. So I cancelled it, used the Save button again, and tried to close it. But up came that same message again, and this time I read it, and saw that it is the same as what you described. So light bulb

I think what happened when I used Save As pdf before, when that message/dialog came up, I didn't really read it. And to be honest, I don't remember what option I chose that time (probably because I was a little confused and unsure what I was doing). But this time, having read the message, I thought something like this -- 'I just used the Save As dialog, and successfully saved the doc as PDF. So the PDF is made, which is what I want. And I've already saved the doc as SVG a couple of times (as I described above). So I don't understand why I'm getting this message. I've already saved it as SVG, so why is it presenting me that option again? But the bottom line is that I know I've got an SVG copy, and I know I've got a PDF, so I'm gonna choose Close without saving.' And I did.

Then I opened the PDF to see if I could detect any loss, and it looks just fine to me. It may be there is some resolution issue, I haven't really looked into it, because for my use, it doesn't matter. For my use, it looks perfect!

So what I want to suggest to you, is 1st make sure you have a complete SVG, using Save A Copy. Then go ahead with the Save As PDF process, and when that message comes up, just try each one...although if you choose Cancel, the message/dialog will just come up again when you try to close it. But try each - Close without saving and Save SVG - and see what happens. Depending on how complex your drawings are, when you open the new PDF, you may not even notice any problems. I know in the past when I've converted image formats, I sometimes see some kind of message warning about possible losses (this was in GIMP). Sometimes it did screw up the image, but other times I didn't notice any problems.

I think in our cases, and others we may encounter (you as a truly new user, and me as a perpetual new user ) sometimes we just have to guess and hope for the best. But as long as we do our experimenting on copies of our complete image, we don't lose anything, and hopefully we learn from the experiments.

I don't know what will happen with your particular images, whether you will notice any loss or not. Because I do think druban is right about a lot of filter effects, blurs, etc. not being converted successfully. And maybe I've told a long, long story, when I could have just said "Save A Copy, then try it and see what happens". But I thought my experience might be helpful to you, sort of like the blind leading the blind, I guess And it occurred to me that no one ever suggested just trying it to see what happens. And I know as a new user, that doesn't always occurr to us, especially when we've seen a warning that we're going to lose our work!

If you do experience some unacceptable losses (on the copy), then I think the resources suggested by druban and ~suv will be some excellent ideas to research. In the end, you may need to go the bitmap route, and use another converter. And remember that artists and authors have been getting books into print for oh so how many years, so there IS a way to do it. It's just this SVG thing is relatively still so new, that there may not be an all open source or all free route to getting it done. It may be that you need to find a friend or someone who already owns certain software, to get through this step or that step along the road to getting published.

So anyway, I hope you can get the PDF to work without any further effort, but if not, I wish you luck and smooth sailing to getting it done one way or another. All best

~suv wrote:

druban wrote:In particular ; gradients, blurs, pattern fills and patterns on paths will just kind of vanish ...

???

Which Inkscape version are you using?

Seriously - can you expand on this blanket statement? I think that's not an adequate description of Inkscape 0.47 export-to-PDF features.

[ if you didn't mean to include Inkscape 0.47 in your posting about the state of current converters, consider my question withdrawn ]

Hi SUV! I am using IS 0.47. It's a lovely program. I don't think any other converter is better than Inkscape, but I don't believe that my assessment is incorrect. Perhaps the disagreement might come from the use of the checkbox in the PDF conversion dialog "Rasterize filter effects"? Are you checking this box? Of course with it checked, Inkscape does much better but it's no longer scaleable then, is it? There is no requirement that PDFs be scaleable, but I think the issue of whether to convert to bitmap and then to PDF or directly to PDF from SVG is really referring to this issue.
I hope I have not misunderstood and am eager for any clarification you mght be able to supply.

Your issue could be called an issue of production pipeline.

Play each tool to its strengths.

PDF in this instance, while likely being your destination format, is also probably a poor format for your intermediate production needs.

If you are happy with Inkscape in it's current role in your pipeline, export the image as a PNG to assure 100% accurate rendering of your work.

From there, import the exported illustrations into a typesetting / design program and create your PDF from there. Your life will become much easier from there.

This is by far one of the most helpful forums I've ever seen!

Brynn: Your message was so helpful! I can't thank you enough for it! You should probably consider a career in tutoring about graphic softwares. I did what you said and it worked fine! I have now my PDF file! Thanks a lot!!!

Troy:What do you mean by typesetting/design program?

Thanks all of you!

Brynn: Your message was so helpful! I can't thank you enough for it! You should probably consider a career in tutoring about graphic softwares. I did what you said and it worked fine! I have now my PDF file! Thanks a lot!!!

You are so very welcome!

As I've said, I know what it's like to approach Inkscape as a complete graphics novice. I'm happy when I can help others, in return for all the patient and generous help I've received here myself. As for a career teaching graphics, I can only chuckle because I would first have to learn it all....and I imagine I'll always be a student of Inkscape. But I'm glad that I happened across the answer to your question, at generally the time when you were asking it, and that it worked for you.

I think it's this forum that we should be grateful for, for bringing us together!

The only way to prevent errors it to use very simple SVG graphics. No blurring, no shadows, no opacity, no gradients. But that is not fun and defeats the purpose of SVG. Hopefully in the future SVG will be fully implemented and all programs will be able to use all of its abilities, without having to convert, and do silly work-arounds. Until then though, we need to convert our SVG files to raster format so shading, blur, transparencies, etc., errors will be avoided when saving our final work to PDF.


You need 4 programs to create your final work.
A word-processor to do your writing, spelling, grammar check. I recommend OpenOffice Writer or Abi Word, etc.
A drawing program to do your illustrations (Inkscape)
A Photo touch up Program I recommend The Gimp
A Layout program I recommend Scribus to publish your final work.

Scribus is a layout program that has the ability to place objects precisely on a page, Layout Programs are extremely precise and you need to use high quality fonts, high quality graphics. Depending who is going to publish your final work, you might be required to save your work as a pdf document. PDF has some shortcomings (Proprietary-not open sourced) but, It does preserve the layout, the graphics, the fonts, everything looks and will print exactly as you designed it. This is where Scribus fills that void quite nicely.

Raster graphics suffer from the jaggies (square blocks when you zoom in), and for that reason you need to increase the size of the image and the DPI (Dots per Inch). For good graphics the DPI should be at least 300 dpi. Most laser printers can print at 600 dpi, and most books are 1400 dpi. Do not use JPEG format, instead use a format that does not remove information to make the file smaller. I prefer PNG because it preserves the information, and supports transparency. Other people prefer TIFFS format. Keep this in mind if you want to publish your work.

For website you can get away with 90 dpi, but not for print.

Onced you have finished your illustrations in Inkscape, save it as Inkscape Svg format. This is your master. Keep it safe.
Then Export it as a png file. Here you need to experiment with what looks acceptable to you. Keep in mind what I mentioned earlier about dpi.
This png file will be what you will be using later on.

Okay, you have all your text, corrected and spelled checked (Thanks OpenOffice or Abiword!). You have all your pictures color corrected and with good dpi (Thanks Gimp!). You have all your exported SVG illustrations as PNG files (Thanks Inkscape!).

Now you fire up Scribus, create your layout, your margins, import your text into text holders, import your images (pictures and Illustrations) into image holders. Save your work as a Scribus format (Your Master-Keep it safe). Then Export your work as a PDF document to send to your publisher or to make available via the web.

Remember that the Gimp is able to open SVG files, but it converts it into paths, when Opening an SVG file a dialog box will come up, increase the size of the image, and dpi. Sometimes I use the Gimp to colour my SVG files ie. I treat my SVG files as photographs, and then Save them As PNG. It all depends on what visual effect I want to achieve. Inkscape now has a bucket fill, and I'm using it to colour my SVG using layers, and I'm finding myself using Inkscape more and more.

Here is a link on how some comic artist are using Inkscape to create comics. It is four parts and available in Youtube. I found it very informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkQmVgq0MBw

Wow Merlin2007, thanks for that excellent summary!