inkscape // importing .eps + .pdf

[jaskah]

hello
i cannot import .eps or .pdf files into inkscape. do i need to install an extension for this?
any help greatly appreciated.
jason

[silbar]

My similar query got a response (from Kayosii) to install pstoedit, to convert (on the command line) somefilename.eps to somefilename.svg. This SVG file can then be opened in Inkscape.

HOWEVER, in my case, all I wanted to do was to add some axis labels to some EPS graphs created by another app. I did not find this in any way easy to do (unlike AI). For one thing, all the numerals on my axes were converted from a Times-like font to Helvetica. Also, the text tool seemed to want to create any new text in a huge way -- in a 10080 point font size! You _can_ change this back to, say, 14 pt in the text tool window, but it is a pain to have to do this every time, even though you may have thought you had set the default font and size earlier. (Am I missing something here.) Also, the "Apply" button is not always highlighted, but you can get it active by switching font (say from Roman to Italic and back again). And, finally, it isn't clear to me that I was ever able to save the SVG file in a way that could be successfully printed.

So, for me -- at least so far -- Inkscape is NOT A SOLUTION.

I have also tried (and succeeded in) importing the EPS file into the GIMP (which I do like) but this loses the nice features of vector graphics.

Another possibility that occurred to me was to see if I could import the EPS files into XFig. Unfortunately, it seems that XFig, at least on this Ubuntu, DOESN'T import EPS, even though the HTML manual says it should. (Apparently some XFig users on Windows can do so.) And, I have not yet found a way to convert an EPS file into a *.fig file, which XFig can, of course, read.

Any help out there? Or, some other app that can allow the editing of EPS?

[silbar]

Aha! I've found out how to convert EPS into XFig from

http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/lsvondelft/files/HowTo/epsinxfig.pdf

which involves pstoedit using

pstoedit -f fig -psarg "-r600x600" myfilename.eps myfilename.fig

on the command line. Thereafter, XFig can be used to work on the latter file and then the end result can be exported back to EPS (which we want for use in LaTeX) as mynewfilename.eps.

[jaskah]

thanks for your reply.
i will keep looking, as this workaround seems really complicated...

[AZzKikR]

Xara Xtreme (open source on Linux) can import EPS and AI's. I think it can then export it to SVG. But perhaps some commandline tool is better for the conversion but I do not know one at this time. I am looking for one myself, too.

[jaskah]

thanks for your help!
i will have to give this a try.

[marcabru]

The Inkscape manual says, that "Besides SVG, Inkscape can import and export several other formats (EPS, PNG)." It is only the Ubuntu version that cannot do this? In that case, should i recompile Inkscape from sources?

It would be good to import EPS without further external conversion.

[marcabru]

"Requires pstoedit and Skencil to be installed."
So I did:
apt-get install skencil pstoedit
And tried again. Still no results, because:
xxx@xxx:~$ skencil
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
xxx@xxx:~$

[kayosiii]

PDF import for Inkscape was a Summer Of Code project that was completed this year - expect to see it as an option in the next version of Inkscape.

[cemelmaci]

hi

for Skencil SVN

sudo apt-get remove skencil

sudo apt-get install python2.4-dev python2.4 python-imaging tcl8.4-dev tk8.4-dev

svn checkout https://scm.wald.intevation.org/svn/skencil/skencil/branches/skencil-0.6

cd skencil-0.6

/usr/bin/python2.4 setup.py configure

/usr/bin/python2.4 setup.py build

sudo /usr/bin/python2.4 setup.py install


Cheers,

Cem

[Spin Doctor]

I was trying to import .eps files into inkscape with no luck with its vanilla install. I then installed the following packages: imagemagick, pstoedit

And I can import .eps-files and .pdf-files, directy into inkscape.

[kenjiru]

It also solved my problem!

You can also convert .eps files to .svg using pstoedit http://www.pstoedit.net (needs GhostScript).

Here is the command:

pstoedit -f plot-svg my.eps my.svg

[graben3]

I confirm this problem.

I have v 0.46 installed
Using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

Out of the box inkscape did not open .eps files.

I did the following to make it open :

Go into synaptic.

Search for these packages and install them. Also install similar packages (I wanted it to work for sure !)

perlmagick
imagemagick
sketch
libwmf-bin
dia
pstoedit

(Not all these packages are necessary but I prefer to tell what I did to make it work so you can reproduce the same thing)

Then if you have troubles opening EPS files containing letters that have a hole in them, just see this :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/168448

Open this file :
/usr/share/inkscape/extensions/eps_input.inx

Where it is written this :
pstoedit -f plot-svg

replace it by this :
pstoedit -f plot-svg -mergetext -ssp

This fix the holes problems and some text being in separate letters so difficult to edit.

See the attached files. For me all letters like A, O, e, p, etc.. where not showing the hole in them. The -ssp & -mergetext fixed this in eps files.

Hope this works for you

[graben3]

I confirm this problem.

I have v 0.46 installed
Using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

Out of the box inkscape did not open .eps files.

I did the following to make it open :

Go into synaptic.

Search for these packages and install them. Also install similar packages (I wanted it to work for sure !)

perlmagick
imagemagick
sketch
libwmf-bin
dia
pstoedit

(Not all these packages are necessary but I prefer to tell what I did to make it work so you can reproduce the same thing

Then if you have troubles opening EPS files containing letters that have a hole in them (like a e o p q b , ...), just see this :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/168448

Open this file :
/usr/share/inkscape/extensions/eps_input.inx

Where it is written this :
pstoedit -f plot-svg

replace it by this :
pstoedit -f plot-svg -mergetext -ssp

This fix the holes problems and some text being in separate letters so difficult to edit.

Hope this works for you

[sancho panza]

Spin doctors tips worked. Thanks!

[trondhuso]

I have tried to open up a eps-file, but it didn't load correctly.

I get a message saying:
Inkscape has received additional data from the script executed. The script did not return an error, but this may indicate the results will not be as expected.

pstoedit: version 3.45 / DLL interface 108 (build Feb 28 2008 - release build - g++ 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu1)) : Copyright (C) 1993 - 2007 Wolfgang Glunz

I'll file a bug report for it.

-t-

[engine]

This looks like a thread where knowledgeable people hang out! and seems to cover issues with pstoedit and svg, so here's my questions: I want to use pstoedit to make svg from ps, and I've hit two problems.
- pstoedit -f plot_svg noyon.ps noyon.svg
tells me
Unsupported output format plot_svg
and then throws up a couple of screens of help including
plot-svg: .svg: svg via GNU libplot (/usr/lib/pstoedit/libp2edrvlplot.so)
This driver supports the following additional options: (specify using -f "format:-option1 -option2")
[ plotformat : string : plotutil format to generate]

Question 1. If I need /usr/lib/pstoedit/libp2edrvlplot.so, where do I get it from (and why isn't it in the pstoedit package)

Question 2. What is the format for the command? -f "format:-option1 -option2" doesn't work for me

Thanks in advance for any help!

[m4lte]

For me import worked after I installed pstoedit (I already had imagemagick installed, so I'm not sure if that's critical).

However I still have problems with some .eps files. An eps 2d graph from Matlab worked well, while with a 3d graph I only get an inconclusive error message.

[snowguy]

I had trouble importing an eps document into inkscape and wanted to share what finally worked for me. None of the solutions above did work. However thus did:
a) I typed epstopdf at the command line
b) I was told to install sudo apt-get install texlive-extra-utils
c) I did: sudo apt-get install texlive-extra-utils
d) then I typed epstopdf myfile.eps from the command line
e) then I opened myfile.pdf in inkskape.

Viola!