svg -> pdf via inkscape improved

[GoogleCodeExporter]

With version inkscape v0.48 it is possible to export svgs via inkscape woth 
latex support (http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/svg-inkscape/). It'd great 
if this Makefile support this behaviour:

a fast patch modify line 2276 to:
# $(call convert-svg,<svg file>,<eps file>,[gray])
convert-svg     = $(INKSCAPE) --without-gui $(if $(filter 
%.pdf,$2),--export-pdf,--export-eps)='$2' --export-latex --file='$1'

Original issue reported on code.google.com by sandrokn...@gmail.com on 13 Mar 2011 at 4:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

So, does adding the following to your Makefile.ini work?

INKSCAPE := inkscape --export-latex 

Original comment by shiblon on 15 Mar 2011 at 2:43

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Patched in r8748358cfdb5.  Attached new makefile.  Let me know if it works.

Original comment by shiblon on 15 Mar 2011 at 2:47

Attachments:

• Makefile

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok I now see this patch doesn't fixed it :(

You also need a additional target:
convert-svg-latex = $(INKSCAPE) --without-gui $(if $(filter 
%.pdf,$2),--export-pdf,--export-eps)='$2' --export-latex  --file='$1'

%.pdf %.pdf_tex %.pdf_tex.tex:  %.svg
    $(QUIET)$(call echo-graphic,$^,$*.pdf)
    $(QUIET)$(call convert-svg-latex,$<,$*.pdf,$(GRAY))

Original comment by sandrokn...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2011 at 3:06

Attachments:

• ink-latex-tex.tar

[GoogleCodeExporter]

No r8748358cfdb5 doesn't fix the problem. If someone use export-latex than he 
have to use \input to include the figures. And without he has to use 
includegraphics. Basiclly inscape produces a %.pdf and %.pdf_tex file out of 
one svg. But input wants to include %.pdf_tex.tex...

Another problem with the Makefile appended in Comment #3 is that the pdf_tex 
file isn't deletet by a make clean!

Original comment by sandrokn...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2011 at 3:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Aha.  Well, including \input files (automatically building them) is a real 
problem with the makefile, because it can't automatically generate dependency 
info with those.  That's a problem with pdflatex (regular latex works fine 
here), so I'm not sure how to deal with it.

Perhaps we just won't support export-latex after all, at least not natively. :(

I think that folks that want to use export-latex might need to put stuff into 
their Makefile.ini file.  Maybe we can try that angle first, and when we have a 
.ini that works, it might illuminate the path toward making this work 
automatically.

Original comment by shiblon on 15 Mar 2011 at 3:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi.

I change the inkscape command:
convert-svg = $(INKSCAPE) --without-gui --export-area-drawing $(if $(filter 
%.pdf,$2),--export-pdf,--export-eps)='$2' --export-latex '$1' 

and create the files like here:
%.pdf:  %.svg
    $(QUIET)$(call echo-graphic,$^,$@)
    $(QUIET)$(call convert-svg,$<,$@,$(GRAY))

%.pdf_tex:  %.svg | %.pdf
    $(QUIET)$(call echo-graphic,$^,$@)
    $(QUIET)$(call echo-graphic,$<,$@,$(GRAY))

%.pdf_tex.tex:  %.pdf_tex
    $(QUIET)$(call echo-graphic,$^,$@)
    $(QUIET)cp $^ $@

and in latex:
\begin{figure}
\centering
\def\svgwidth{0.5\columnwidth}
\input{SVG.pdf_tex}
\end{figure}

It works, but if some svg file is added like figure (\includegraphics[]{SVG}, 
then the makefile dont creates the pdf_tex file and dont clean it.

Maybe some change on the inkscape command line option may be posible to make 
this simpler.

Original comment by pawe...@gmail.com on 3 Apr 2011 at 10:57

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm leaving this issue open, but all of my experience with using \input to get 
graphics is making me want to run away.  As you are noticing, dependencies are 
nontrivial in cases like these.

I don't understand what your %.pdf_tex: target is supposed to do; it looks like 
you aren't actually doing any work, just echoing.  Is that what you intended?

Original comment by shiblon on 4 Apr 2011 at 3:37

• Changed state: New

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi
Yes, the .pdf_tex file is created actually by target %.pdf. But the target :
%.pdf_tex:  %.svg | %.pdf
tells makefile to execute first the "%pdf" target and then the %pdf_tex. When 
make executes the %.pdf_tex target it checks if the file was created and then 
remember to delete it on clean.

The \include command use file .pdf_tex.tex, that is just a copy of .pdf_tex.

Maybe inkscape people will give a better interface to use --export-latex on 
next versions.

Original comment by pawe...@gmail.com on 4 Apr 2011 at 8:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for explaining the way you set up the dependency graph there.

The main issue here is that LaTeX (in all its variants) will *fail* on the 
first missing graphic when that graphic is included via \include or \input.  
That means that you can't, for example, have a bunch of .svg files in your 
directory, type "make" and have it work.

What will instead happen is it will build the first missing graphic and then 
fail.  The only way to make it not fail is to run "make" over and over again 
until all N graphics are created.  That sucks.

The only way around this issue is to have a separate phony target in the 
makefile, like "all-svg-tex" that builds all of your graphics, then you can 
just build the rest normally.  But, if we're going to do that anyway, we might 
as well just encourage people to create their own graphics-building phony 
target in Makefile.ini.

Anyway, it's a thorny issue.  If there were a reliable way for latex to tell us 
which files it is missing (*all* such files) then this would be fine, but there 
isn't, and it is not, in fact, even theoretically possible, since files that go 
through input can contain arbitrary code that is referenced later.

So, I've shied away from any kind of graphics inclusion that is not based on 
\includegraphics for that reason.  I have caved on it once before, though, for 
pstex files (see the die-on-pstex definition in the makefile for what happens 
in this case: all I can do is output a warning and quit until the user has 
manually run "make all-pstex").

We can do something like I did with the pstex case if that's warranted, here.  
It's worth considering.  But, we would need to come up with a standard filename 
suffix so that everyone who just wants .pdf output from inkscape doesn't suffer 
from the more esoteric svg->tex pipeline.

Original comment by shiblon on 4 Apr 2011 at 8:46

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Try this example, 2 svg files. make executed ones works.

Original comment by pawe...@gmail.com on 4 Apr 2011 at 9:03

Attachments:

• raport.tar.bz2

[GoogleCodeExporter]

anyway, I agree with You. If somebody needs the --export-latex feature, then in 
this issue is enough information to create a custom makefile.

Original comment by pawe...@gmail.com on 4 Apr 2011 at 9:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If it should go into the standard makefile you have to differ the two ways of 
creating svg for latex. the one way is svg->pdf (without tex output) and the 
other way svg->pdf & pdf_tex the problem is that the pdf isn't the same. In the 
first way all text is insde the pdf. At second excluded to tex. But it is easy 
to differ. If the pdf_tex is needed than the --export-latex should be used. 
Otherwithe it should be run without it :)

Original comment by sandrokn...@gmail.com on 4 Apr 2011 at 9:55

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sure, and the way I've dealt with that in the past has been to enforce a file 
name convention.

For example, if you want to build a .pdf from .svg and use \includegraphics, 
things work as before.  If, however, you want to build a .pdf_tex and do it 
with \include, we might consider telling people to name their files 
something.tex.svg or similar.

If we do it that way, we can automatically generate the appropriate targets and 
handle things transparently (except for the warning message that you need to 
run "make all-svg-pdf" first).  Just thoughts.

Original comment by shiblon on 5 Apr 2011 at 2:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/751667

Original comment by pawe...@gmail.com on 5 Apr 2011 at 8:23

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I don't think that bug really makes sense, and it definitely doesn't solve the 
problem here, anyway.  To reiterate, the problems are these, and they really 
are LaTeX and Make issues, not inkscape issues:

1) LaTeX can't proceed if something that it \input or \include is not 
available.  It just can't.  It can't even do it theoretically, so it isn't a 
bug - it's the way the universe is.

2) We can't automatically determine, before running LaTeX, using only Make, 
which files should be pdf_tex and which should not, unless we do it in the file 
name.

So, for point 1, we're stuck with detection and manual intervention, like a 
"all-pdf-tex" phony target and a warning.

For point 2, we can enforce that people name their files .tex.svg or similar, 
and then we can do all the detection we want.

Original comment by shiblon on 6 Apr 2011 at 4:16