Inkscape

Exporting a PNG

Here’s how you’d export a PNG with a white background and a width of 500px.

inkscape yourfile.svg --export-type=png --export-width=500 --export-background=white

It’ll make a file named yourfile.png by default.

SVG to PDF

Here’s how you’d export an SVG to a PDF:

inkscape --export-type=pdf --export-filename=output.pdf input.svg

Note the --export-type=pdf isn’t actually necessary, but I think it ensures that the export-filename has the right extension.

Editing defs or markers

Editing markers or symbols (which are in the <defs> section) can be slightly annoying. One tip is to replace a def’d ID with a <use> element pointing to some group (e.g. <g>), which you can then edit. You may also be able to have the <use> point to an external SVG.

(TODO: Show an example of this.)

Maintaining text style

I kind of don’t like Inkscape resets to some default style for entering text. Though I think you can set it to remember a previous style (which is sometimes worse for me).

Edit from 2024-05-13: Actually, just set it to remember the previous style. This is easier. If you want to maintain a style, you might edit your ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml (only edit when Inkscape is closed, otherwise it’ll overwrite it) and look for

    <eventcontext
       id="text"

Hotkeys for setting classes and clearing styles

Okay, I’ve kind of figured out a way of clearing styles and setting a class using hotkeys. You can use the gaction app.object-set-attribute('attribute,value') to set (but not seemingly completely remove) XML attributes. So you can set style to an empty string and class to some class you want. You can then bind these to hotkeys like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<keys name="User Shortcuts">
  <bind
     gaction="app.object-set-attribute('class,test')"
     keys="&lt;Hyper&gt;t" />
  <bind
     gaction="app.object-set-attribute('style,')"
     keys="&lt;Hyper&gt;s" />
</keys>

In this example, Hyper+t sets the class to “test” and Hyper+s sets the style attribute to be an empty string. You’d import this file in your keyboard preferences. Take note that this doesn’t seem to survive being re-exported.

Command palette

You can pop up the command palette by pressing ?. Say you selected two objects and then hit ? then searched for align. Select the “Align Objects” option. You’ll see the search icon at the left of the text input turns to a keyboard icon. This is where you can enter in arguments. Like you can put “vcenter last” to vertically align the center to the last selected object.

Also, I’m not sure where the documentation for the command palette is, so here’s what I’ve discovered from command-palette.cpp:

• Press the up key to use history (not sure how to use parameter history, though it seems saved).
• Hitting Escape or ? (not configurable) will exit the command palette.

Using multi-page SVGs in browsers

Inkscape has support for “multiple-page” SVGs. This isn’t some part of the SVG spec, instead Inkscape has its own <inkscape:page/> element. Browsers will only show the first page. To actually view multiple pages, you can use the SVG <view/> element. If you have a back page like:

<inkscape:page
       x="1066"
       y="0"
       width="1056"
       height="816"
       id="page6"
       margin="0"
       bleed="0" />

Make a view like:

<view id="back" viewBox="1066 0 1056 816" />

Then to use it in an XHTML file, include:

<img src="/some.svg#back"/>

Resizing text in figures

For my dissertation, I made a lot of figures where I didn’t consider their physical, printed dimensions. They were usually too big and would end up getting scaled down to fit on a piece of letter paper. Although now I set figure dimensions to be more realistic (say, 5 inches wide where 1 inch = 96 pixels or “user units”), I had to resize a lot of other figures and their text.

One trick for resizing old figures is to use embedded <svg> tags. Encase your old SVG in a new one with better dimensions, and then pull text from the inner SVG to the outer using “Move to Layer”. You may also need to move text down and back (like, pressing Up Down) to get rid of any matrix transformations. Once text is in the outer SVG where 1 inch = 96 pixels, you can use “pt” font sizes meaningfully.