Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Resources/PDF conversion to SVG: Difference between revisions
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Before learning how to convert PDF images to SVG images it may be useful to learn how to extract images from PDF documents and create PNG, GIF, and JPG images. By using Adobe Reader many images in PDF documents can be right-clicked, copied, and then pasted into any image editor. A popular, free image editor good for beginners using [[Microsoft Windows]] is [[IrfanView]] (if you use [[GNU/Linux]] you may have [[GIMP]] in your distribution). Launch it and paste the image into it. Then use the image editor to save the image in any format. You can also select almost any area of a PDF document with Adobe Reader's cropping and selection tools, and then copy that selected area by right-clicking it. Then paste it into any image editor for conversion to other image formats. The PrintScreen key on your keyboard is a good last resort, too. Click that key, and then open an image editor and click "paste" (usually in the edit menu). Finally, [[Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Image workshop]] can create, extract, or edit almost any image. Just leave a request for help or advice there.
Please see [[commons:Category:PDF maps]]. ▼
This is a tutorial in various formats. Some parts are in question-and-answer format, as in FAQs. Parts of this were copied and adapted from this discussion: ▼
*[[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps#PDF map conversion to SVG]]▼
▲Before learning how to convert PDF images to SVG images it may be useful to learn how to extract images from PDF documents and create PNG, GIF, and JPG images. By using Adobe Reader many images in PDF documents can be right-clicked, copied, and then pasted into any image editor. A popular, free image editor good for beginners using [[Microsoft Windows]] is [[IrfanView]] (if you use [[GNU/Linux]] you may have [[GIMP]] in your distribution). Launch it and paste the image into it. Then use the image editor to save the image in any format. You can also select almost any area of a PDF document with Adobe Reader's cropping and selection tools, and then copy that selected area by right-clicking it. Then paste it into any image editor for conversion to other image formats. The PrintScreen key on your keyboard is a good last resort, too. Click that key, and then open an image editor and click "paste" (usually in the edit menu). Finally, [[Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Image workshop]] can create, extract, or edit almost any image. Just leave a request for help or advice there.
Now here is some info on how to convert PDF image to SVG images. This page covers conversion using free tools. To convert using [[Adobe Illustrator]] go to the following two pages:
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It takes only a few seconds to convert a [[PDF]] to an [[SVG]], using nothing but [[FOSS|free]] software. Go [[free/libre/open-source software|open source and free software]]! This tutorial assumes familiarity with installing programs and downloading, saving, opening and uploading files.
▲This is a tutorial in various formats. Some parts are in question-and-answer format, as in FAQs. Parts of this were copied and adapted from this discussion:
===How to convert a PDF to SVG===▼
▲*[[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps/Archive 5#PDF map conversion to SVG]]
====Conversion with Inkscape====▼
▲=== How to convert a PDF to SVG ===
==== Convert a single page of a pdf to .svg ====
▲===== Conversion with Inkscape =====
#Download [[Inkscape]] from [https://www.inkscape.org www.inkscape.org] (version 0.46 and above)
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#Upload the SVG to Wikimedia Commons and tag it with {{Tld|Extracted with Inkscape|v}}
''Note: Some versions of Inkscape do not have PDF support compiled in; also, text importing does not always produce satisfactory results in Inkscape.''
====Conversion with PDF2SVG====▼
Large and complex PDFs such as some of the maps from the USGS are sometimes difficult for PDF2SVG or Inkscape to convert. For PDFs that are not able to be converted by these tools, <code>dvisvgm</code> seems to do a better job, and even results in smaller SVGs in some cases. <code>dvisvgm</code> is often distributed as part of TexLive, and instructions for obtaining it are available on [https://dvisvgm.de/ their website].
To convert a PDF to SVG with dvisvgm, run the following command:
#Get PDF2SVG from http://www.cityinthesky.co.uk/opensource/pdf2svg/ and compile it. If you are using Linux or FreeBSD or MacPorts, PDF2SVG might also be installable via the package installer.▼
If you want to make your SVG smaller, you can add <code>--optimize=all</code> to <code>dvisvgm</code> and additionally run the resulting SVG through [https://github.com/RazrFalcon/svgcleaner svgcleaner] to further shrink the file without perceptual quality loss. The main drawback is that <code>dvisvgm</code> cannot embed fonts from PDF, it can only convert them to paths.
==== Convert a multiple page pdf to svg ====
Inkscape currently doesn't support extracting multiple pages of a .pdf to svg.
===== Conversion with pdf2svg =====
pdf2svg is a command line tool which allows you to extract multiple or all pages of a pdf to a series of .svg files. To install:
▲#Get
## '''Ubuntu/Debian/Chromebook with Linux support''': Use <code>sudo apt-get update</code> followed by <code>sudo apt-get install pdf2svg</code> in the command line. (''Note: [https://askubuntu.com/questions/1230902/what-is-the-correct-way-to-create-a-persistent-ubuntu-20-04-usb you can run a 'persistent' version of Ubuntu on a USB stick without installing it on your hard drive]'').
## '''Windows''': Binaries can be downloaded from [https://github.com/jalios/pdf2svg-windows here].
To convert a pdf:
#Convert the first page of a PDF file with <code>pdf2svg file.pdf file.svg</code>. To extract all pages of a multiple-page PDF use <code>pdf2svg file.pdf output-%02d.svg all</code>. This generates output files ''output-00.svg'', ''output-01.svg'', etc. where the pattern "%02d" is replaced by the respective two-digit page numbers.
#If necessary use Inkscape to edit the resulting SVG.
''Note: It requires that [[Poppler (software)|Poppler]], [[cairo (graphics)|Cairo]], and [[X_Window_System|X]] are installed on your system.''
===Extracting part of a PDF===
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Inkscape often produces [[#BadSVG|unreasonably large]] SVG files from PDFs, especially if you are only trying to use a small part of the PDF (such as a single vector image or logo on a larger page). In order to reduce the size of the resulting image, it is almost always better to copy and paste the portion of interest into a new Inkscape document rather than try to delete the unwanted content and crop the canvas. To do this:
#Open the PDF in Inkscape
#Delete any backgrounds or surrounding text/images near the image you are trying to extract
#Select the entire image you are trying to extract by holding the SHIFT key and dragging
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===For interest===
Inkscape is [[FOSS
*[[Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve#Image:APISmap1.pdf]]
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:Good Q. An example of a (vector) PDF map ready for conversion to SVG is [[:Image:APISmap1.pdf|this]]. PDFs can contain practically any type of information, the most common ones being text, raster images (ordinary images like bitmaps) and vector graphics. The vector information has to be coded into the PDF as such. Quite a lot of organizations publish vector information (like maps) this way, so it's handy to be able to convert ''out'' of PDF, but putting things into PDFs is pointless for us, it doesn't change the type. If you need a raster image converted, best to [[Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve|speak to a WikiGraphist]] - [[User:MissMJ|MissMJ]] is the resident pro and very approachable.
[[Category:Wikipedia
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