jghuangcn / svg2tex

A python script that exports text from *.svg files to LaTeX picture environment

Svg2tex

Svg2tex is a python script that extracts all text from a *.svg file to a LaTeX picture environment. This way the picture's text is processed directly by LaTeX and can be included into the document.

Download it now: tar or zip file.

Usage

Svg2tex can be used as an inkscape extension or as a standalone script. The final result is the same.

Inkscape extension

Installing svg2tex is very easy. Under Linux you only need to copy svg2tex.py and output.inx under /home/<your username>/.inkscape/extensions. Under Windows just copy the same files under C:\<inkscape installation directory>\share\extensions\ . At this point it's necessary to restart inkscape. Under the save menu there should be a new option: LaTeX (text only) picture environment (*.tex).

Command-line

Svg2tex can also be called from command-line. Here it is the syntax:

python svg2tex.py <options> <svg-input-file> <tex-output-file>

The <tex-output-file> is optional and, if it's not given, the LaTeX output is printed in standard output. The <options> can be any of the following:

• -i <filename> (or --include <filename>) - set the background image of the picture environment to <filename>,
• -t <filename> (or --textless <filename>) - make a copy of the original *.svg file without text and save it as <filename>.

Even from command-line, svg2tex can be paired with inkscape. The next simple shell script, for example, converts all *.svg files in the directory into ready-to-use LaTeX + *.pdf pictures:

#!/bin/sh

for file in *.svg
do
  echo "Processing ${file}..."
  fn=${file%.svg}
  python svg2tex.py -i "${fn}" -t "${fn}.tl.svg" "${file}" "${fn}.tex"
  inkscape --export-pdf="${fn}.pdf" "${fn}.tl.svg"

  rm "${fn}.tl.svg"
done

More info

The documentation file also has a step-by-step example on how to use svg2tex with inkscape.