Embedded SVG in PDF

[candlerb]

The syntax:

![whee](foo.svg)

works for generating HTML pages, but not for PDF. LaTeX barfs with Unknown graphics extension: .svg

It would be really useful to support this. SVG is a standard, portable vector image format which is natively editable by tools such as inkscape.

Currently I have a workaround which is to convert the SVG to PDF externally, but this also requires the markdown source to be changed to ![whee](foo.pdf) by piping through sed. At worst, this could perhaps be done as a (pandoc or gitit) plugin.

[adityam]

FWIW, if inkscape is installed, ConTeXt will use it to convert a svg file to pdf on the fly. So, changing the filename extension is not needed in ConTeXt.

But, it general, handling multiple image types is a pain in markdown. One option could be to use TeX like smart extension completion. For example, in LaTeX

\includegraphics{file}

will search for file.ps, file.pdf, file.jpg, file.png depending on the engine. Can we have a similar feature in Pandoc? If an image without an extension is specified, search for .pdf, .png, .jpg, etc and make the appropriate substitution depending on the output format.

[candlerb]

Yes, I'm told that ConTeXt should be able to handle svg, but I've not been able to get it to work so far. Full details of what I tried are at http://groups.google.com/group/pandoc-discuss/browse_thread/thread/5ec939abcc8e1361

The magic incantation luatools --generate gets me part of the way, and I can see that ConTeXt is in fact invoking inkscape to convert svg to pdf, but then it barfs with a stack overflow error.

So I doubt this is a particularly portable way to make this work.

[adityam]

As I commented on that thread, the error is because TL packages almost a year old version of ConTeXt.

In any case, ConTeXt is simply calling inkscape to convert svg to pdf on the fly. It should be possible to do the same with Pandoc by writing a custom export filter that inspects the image names and if an svg image is found, changes the image name to pdf and runs inkscpae to convert svg to pdf.

[candlerb]

Thanks for the update. I don't know Haskell and don't have the bandwidth to learn, so writing an export filter isn't an option for me. Using sed + a Makefile gets the job done for standalone use, but unfortunately doesn't work within gitit.

[jacobus]

Just a nudge to say that including SVG in documents is a sorely missed feature.

[jgm]

I think that this issue should be closed. LaTeX doesn't support SVG natively; you need to convert the file with an external tool. It's not something pandoc can do anything about.

Currently I have a workaround which is to convert the SVG to PDF externally, but this also requires the markdown > source to be changed to by piping through sed. At worst, this could perhaps be done as a (pandoc > or gitit) plugin.

See the --default-image-extension option, which may allow you to avoid modifying the source.

Note also: It would not be hard to write a filter (in Haskell or python) that converted each .svg image referenced in the source to PDF, and converted the images to link to the PDF version instead of SVG. See
http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/scripting.html
and the examples in https://github.com/jgm/pandocfilters/tree/master/examples.

[jeromerobert]

Here is the filter I wrote, based on jgm tip : https://gist.github.com/jeromerobert/3996eca3acd12e4c3d40

[jacobus]

Thanks Jerome,

Would you mind giving a sample of how your filters should be used (i.e. how
should one set up to use them). I had a quick look at the code, and it
seams that you only support JSON input.

Say for example you are generating PDF from Markdown and using a Latex
template for the generation, would one be able to use your filters?

Thanks again for sharing,
Jacobus

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, Jerome Robert [email protected]
wrote:

Here is the filter I wrote, based on jgm tip :
https://gist.github.com/jeromerobert/3996eca3acd12e4c3d40

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#265 (comment).

[mpickering]

@jacobus - the documentation for using filters can be seen here.

To use this specific filter you will need a command such as

pandoc -o out.pdf -f markdown --template=template.tex --filter=pandoc-svg.py input.md

The filter is then applied after the originally document is parsed and before being converted to latex.

[jacobus]

Thank you very much :-)

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:40 PM, mpickering [email protected] wrote:

@jacobus https://github.com/jacobus - the documentation for using
filters can be seen here http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/scripting.html
.

To use this specific filter you will need a command such as

pandoc -o out.pdf -f markdown --template=template.tex --filter=pandoc-svg.py input.md

The filter is then applied after the originally document is parsed and
before being converted to latex.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#265 (comment).

[ousia]

@jeromerobert and @mpickering, I wonder whether it would be feasible that pandoc could automatically invoke the filter when it detects that an SVG image has to be included in a PDF file using LaTeX.

[hoxnox]

Can anybody write filter, that will use rsvg-convert tool from librsvg package? I have no expirience in filter writing to pandoc...

[jgm]

+++ Merder Kim [Apr 25 15 01:58 ]:

Can anybody write filter, that will use rsvg-convert tool from librsvg package? I have no expirience in filter writing to pandoc...

If you post on pandoc-discuss, someone may be able to help
(indeed, if you search that list you may find something relevant.)

[HaoZeke]

This still seems to be a relevant problem... Particularly for automatic pdf generation from project README files which typically have svg badges...

[jgm]

See #1793 This has been implemented in 6b72c5e. +++ Rohit Goswami [Nov 08 17 22:25 ]:

…

This still seems to be a relevant problem... Particularly for automatic pdf generation from project README files which typically have svg badges... — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, [1]view it on GitHub, or [2]mute the thread. References 1. #265 (comment) 2. https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAL5KphCzd4jTi9XHxZ8jYkea2rtHN_ks5s0ipMgaJpZM4BJZiZ

[HaoZeke]

Ah, I guess in my use case I need to first download the image...

[yuwash]

@hoxnox Thanks for the tip, librsvg is actually a very nice alternative to inkscape for being so much smaller to install. I think, based on @jeromerobert's work you just need to change the line

cmd_line = ['inkscape', option[0], eps_name, src]

to something like

cmd_line = ['rsvg-convert', '--format', option[0], '-o', eps_name, src]

I personally converted it to ps instead of pdf and further used ps2eps to create eps.