Vector Export

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Scribus offers several vector formats to export its documents to. In the menu File > Export, the following are available:

  • Save Page as EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)
  • Save as PDF (Portable Document Format)
  • Save Page as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)

PDF exportENDNOTE is covered its own chapter. Beside the options in the menu File > Export, a Scribus document can be printed into a PostScript file. Please note that PostScript and PDF files are the only file formats which can contain more than one page.

Contents

Some Limitations of SVG and EPS Export

The EPS and SVG formats are described in some detail in Importing Vector Drawings.ENDNOTE What we want to show here are some limitations of these methods.

Image:Vectorexport.png

We'll start out with a simple page in Scribus, using sample text and an arbitrary image from a digital camera. The final DPI of this image in Scribus ended up to be about 420. The text is using a Gentium italic font, 13pt. size.

From this Scribus file, 3 separate PDFs were generated.

  • The first was a direct export to PDF from Scribus, using no special settings.
  • Next, an SVG was generated from this page. This SVG was then imported onto a blank document in Scribus, then a second PDF was generated.
  • Finally, an EPS file was generated from this page, and the EPS then imported onto a blank document, then a third PDF generated

Note that these last two not only involve the exporting capabilities of Scribus but also subsequent importing.

The Text

These are screenshots of the PDFs with magnification at 200%. The text from the SVG is smaller since the SVG was not resized from its native export size. The EPS was also not rescaled.

What is immediately apparent is that SVG export doesn't support all text features – we have lost the italicized style, and the placement of characters on the baseline isn't as expected, especially when there are descenders. The EPS looks better, yet there is some excessive thickness seen.

The Image

Here we have taken screenshots of the end resulting PDFs magnified in Adobe Reader to 1600%. Once again, the scaling is smaller for the SVG since the SVG was not rescaled on import back into Scribus.

Direct PDF export from Scribus
Direct PDF export from Scribus
SVG export, then import to Scribus, then to PDF
SVG export, then import to Scribus, then to PDF
EPS export, then import to Scribus, then to PDF
EPS export, then import to Scribus, then to PDF

There is not a great deal of difference here, either in resolution or consistency of colors. One would need to check the final printed PDFs to better see any differences. The SVG uses a pointer to the original image, so it is not so surprising that image resolution is similar to that of the direct PDF export.

Behavior of Exported SVG/EPS in Other Programs

Problems with the display of exported SVG and EPS files are not necessarily problems with their creation. SVG is a relatively new format, and different applications have varying degrees of implementation of all its possible features, Scribus itself being an example. EPS unfortunately suffers from having such variability in what it can contain, that it is hard to accommodate all the possible information which might be included in the file.

Firefox 2 imported the SVG, with text displayed as well as with ImageMagick, but while the image was imported, it appeared onscreen only briefly. The EPS used an auxiliary program, in this case Document Viewer was used, with text faithfully reproduced, but the image was considerably darker.

GSView successfully imported the EPS. Like Document Viewer, the image was much darker.

ImageMagick successfully imported the SVG, with image intact, and interestingly, there was proper placement of characters on the baseline, but they were not in italics. Thus, we must conclude that the style is an export problem of Scribus, the baseline placement an import problem of Scribus. The EPS colors of the image were inverted, and the page was black, so it is unclear whether the text was displayed correctly in ImageMagick – applying Negate did not result in a complete fix of colors, and did not show text.

Inkscape failed to successfully import either the SVG or the EPS. It could not find the image for the SVG, which was especially curious since it was shown in the preview of the import dialog. The EPS also showed no image, and the text had the white areas of letters such as d, p, and b filled in with black.

Squiggle successfully loaded the SVG, image intact, and displaying normally. Appearance was at least as good as ImageMagick.

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