I had a scaling issue on printing an SVG file that is exported from Inkscape. It turns out that the issue is caused by wrong/incompatible printer settings.
Is there a way to propose the printer settings from within an SVG file where the application must take in consideration upon printing that file?
In short: No, it's not possible.
First of all, an SVG file is not intended for print. It's a simple vector file format used for web graphics. It can't even have a color profile or multiple pages.
Even if we were talking about a PDF (which is intended for print) it's not possible to force printer settings like paper format, orientation, fit to printer margins/actual size, grayscale/color, resolution etc.
In this case, it might sound like a good idea to be able to do that, but seen from the user's point of view it would be very annoying if documents didn't behave in the same way and constantly tried to override the user's preferred printer settings.
Furthermore, different printers could have different settings available. I'm not sure, but I don't think there is a global standard for this. There could be manufacturers who uses their own standard.
I do understand why you want this. I often send designs for approval to my clients and they tell me everything looks kinda small - they are unaware of the fit to printer margins/actual size issue, but I can't control their printer, so I have to instruct them to print at actual size/100%.
I draw graphics for my program in corel draw (x6),
after that export it as svg files, and my program
uses this svg files.
Let's say I draw "arrow" in corel draw program.
It consists of tip and line.
I need to show this "arrow" in my program,
but I need "tip" part to be not scalable,
while "line" should be scalable.
The most simple solution which works, split "arrow"
into two parts, convert "tip" part to bitmap during program starts.
But it requires too much time for complex pictures.
And I wonder, is it possible in svg format to say this part should
not be scaled, and this should? And how this can be exported from corel draw?
I found something suitable in corel draw, to play with scale for diffrent parts of picture,
but during export to svg all my definitions was lost.
Unfortunately, there is no concept of a non-scaling element. At my last job, I worked with the SVG working group to try to get this feature introduced (nonscaling elements are really useful in engineering drawings), and it is on the roadmap for SVG 2.
The issue is SVG-ISSUE-2400.
The way to do this for now, is to implement a zoom event, that dynamically rescales nonscaling elements when the zoom level changes.
I am trying to draw this svg of europe using raphael. For each path in the svg, I've parsed it and do: r.path([countrypath]). This works, but the problem is that it is gigantic. For example, some of the paths look like M 11689.234, 6005.2561... It isn't even coming close to fitting on a 500x500 canvas. How do I resize this? Raphael's scale/translate don't seem to work, or I don't know how to use it. I noticed in the SVG each path has transform="translate(5.875e-4,7.538462e-5)" Do I need to somehow change the viewBox? Or change the svg path's somehow before it touches Raphael?
you can use scale(Xtimes,Ytimes,centreX,centreY)
where Xtimes,Ytimes are the proportion reduction if you select 0.2 the images would be reduced to 1/5th
and
centreX, centreY are relative coordinates where you should select 0,0 so that all paths/parts of svg are scaled down uniformly and relatively
if you select scale(0.2,0.2,0,0) your image would be properly reduced to 1/5th
I actual picked out quite a large SVG of the world yesterday and fed it through the SVGTOHTML converter.
You will find the tool and associated info #
http://www.irunmywebsite.com/raphael/svgsource.php
I set up a whole load of resources for Raphael #
http://www.irunmywebsite.com/raphael/raphaelsource.php
Amongst these you will find the world map wrapped in the scale pluton provided by Zeven!
The 20minute exercise delivered this...
http://www.irunmywebsite.com/raphael/colourmap2.php
Hopefully this will help you or someone with a similar problem in the future.
Also note that you can simplify paths in SVG editors as well as scale them before you put them in the SVGTOHTML converter.
Quite often maps can be drawn to extreme detail but simplifying them will greatly reduce path length.
You have two options either use what I did, use the .transform("transform string") to scale the paths, the transform string can be sww,hh,xx,yy where ww and hh is by how much you want to scale the path.
.transform("s0.25,0.25,0,0");
You can find an EXAMPLE HERE or jsfiddle HERE.
Or use
paper.scaleAll(n);
where n is the amount by you want to scale the whole paper by. First create the path in the page and then scale the paper object by maybe half
paper.scaleAll(0.5);
You can find the library and examples for the Scale.Raphaeljs library in the link below:
Scale Raphael library
Translating by such a small amount seems a bit wasteful, it's ~0 anyway, I doubt you'd see much of a difference if you stripped off the transform attributes that look like that.
Yes, changing the viewBox could make it fit to whatever you wanted in all viewers that support SVG, but raphael itself doesn't support viewBox (you'd have to provide some VML fallback yourself).
Either preprocess the path data to fit your particular use (probably a good idea anyway, it always helps to keep the filesize down, wikipedia maps are usually quite large) or use raphael's scale function to scale the paths to a proper size.
Update: Raphaël v2.0 and later does support viewBox (via the setViewBox method).
You can use the Raphael attribute 'translation', which takes an x,y delta. ie:
r.path([countryPath]).attr({translation:'-11689, -6005'});
To make it more reusable for multiple paths, you could parse the x and y values from the M in your svg path. When I did this, it turned out that I didn't want my path to be exactly on the 0,0 since that sent it over the canvas as well -- might take some adjustment depending on the height and width of your element.
I need to make a screenshot of my form created in QT designer. There are numerous approaches to do screenshots(gimp, import, etc..) but alt of them deal with same dpi as on my monitor(about 100dpi). This is quite enough to publish on web site, but 300dpi images are required for paper publications. Are there any ways to create 300dpi screenshots?
I don't think that the 300dpi requirement for publication applies to things like screenshots, where the data is inherently pixelated. It's meant for things like graphs that can and should be generated in a vector format.
Just get the best results you can, and only use screenshots for things that are absolutely necessary, and not, for example, commandline I/O or results graphs.
If the final images are being shown smoothed and blurry, either find settings in your PDF creator to prevent this, or manually blow up the image to a multiple of its original size to preserve the original sharp pixelation.
Painting can be done on any QPaintDevice, which includes QPrinter. If you wanted to, you could set up painting redirection to a given device, then have the widget repaint itself. This might give you the higher precision you desire. For more information, look on Qt's website for the Paint System overview, and also maybe look at the QPixmap::grabWidget functions.
You can not grab screenshot in a best resolution than the one of your monitor. DPI has no sense in computer display. Some software convert pixel per point (ppp) to dot per inch (dpi) for paper publication.
Once you have made your screenshots, you can convert them to 300 dpi using a software like photoshop or equivalent.
You can't have more pixels on your screenshot than your widget displays.
For a given widget size (say 900x900px) you can have your image printed at 300dpi, but it will only make a 3 inch square on your paper.
You can force your screen to behave as a 4K display with the command:
xrandr --output eDP1 --rate 40.01 --mode 1366x768 --fb 4096x3072 --panning 4096x3072
remmember to fit the rate and the mode fields as stated from your default xrandr configuration. You can see that with xrandr
and then acquire the screenshot with
import -window root imagefile.png
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When doing small icons, header graphics and the like for websites, is it better to use GIFs or PNGs?
Obviously if transparency effects are required, then PNGs are definitely the way to go, and for larger, more photographic images I'd use JPEGs - but for normal web "furniture", which would you recommend and why? It may just be the tools I'm using, but GIF files usually seem to be a bit smaller than a comparible PNG, but using them just seems so 1987.
As a general rule, PNG is never worse, and often better than GIF because of superior compression. There might be some edge cases where GIF is slightly better (because the PNG format may have a slightly larger overhead from metadata) but it's really not worth the worry.
It may just be the tools I'm using, but GIF files usually seem to be a bit smaller than a comparible PNG
That may indeed be due to the encoding tool you use.
/EDIT: Wow, there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about PNG file size. To quote Matt:
There's nothing wrong with GIFs for images with few colours, and as you have noticed they tend to be smaller.
This is a typical encoding mistake and not inherent in the format. You can control the colour depth and make the PNG file as small. Please refer to the relevant section in the Wikipedia article.
Also, lacking support in MSIE6 is blown out of proportion by Chrono:
If you need transparency and can get by with GIFs, then I'd recommend them because IE6 supports them. IE6 doesn't do well with transparent PNGs.
That's wrong. MSIE6 does support PNG transparency. It doesn't support the alpha channel (without a few hacks), though but this is a different matter since GIFs don't have it at all.
The only technical reason to use GIFs instead of PNGs is when use need animation and don't want to rely on other formats.
The W3C mention 3 advantages of PNG over GIF.
• Alpha channels (variable
transparency),
• Cross-platform gamma correction
(control of image brightness) and
color correction
• Two-dimensional interlacing (a
method of progressive display).
Also, have a look at these resources for guidance:
PNG v's GIF (W3C Guidance)
PNG FAQ
Wow, I'm really suprised with all the wrong answers here. PNG-8 will always be smaller than GIF when properly optimized. Just run your PNG-8 files through PngCrush or any of the other PNG optimization routines.
The key things to understand:
PNG8 and GIF are lossless <= 256 colors
PNG8 can always be smaller than GIF
GIF should never be used unless you need animation
and of course,
Use JPG for black&white or full color photographic images
Use PNG for low color, line art, screenshot type images
The main reason to use PNG over GIF from a legal standpoint is covered here:
http://www.cloanto.com/users/mcb/19950127giflzw.html
The patents have apparently expired as of 2004, but the idea that you can use PNG as open-source over GIF is appealing to many people.
(png open source reference: http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-09-09-021-04-PS)
Be careful of color shifts when using PNG. This link gives an example, and contains many more links with further explanation:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GammaCorrectionAndColorCorrectionPNGIsStillTooHard.aspx
GIF images are not subject to this problem.
I don't think it makes a lot of difference (customers don't care). Personally I would choose PNGs because they are a W3C standard.
Be cautious with the PNG transparency effects: they don't work with IE6.
For images on the web, each format has its pros and cons. For photograph-type images (ie lots and lots of colours, no hard edges) use a JPEG.
For icons and the like, you have a choice between PNG and GIF. GIFs are limited to 256 colours. PNGs can be formatted like GIFs (ie 256 colours, with 1-bit transparency that will work in IE6), but for small images they're slightly larger than GIFs. 24-bit PNGs support both a large gamut, and alpha transparency (although it's troublesome in IE6).
PNGS are your only really sensible choice for things like screenshots (ie, both lots of colours and hard edges), and personally, that's what I stick with most of the time, unless I have something for which JPEG is more suitable (like a photo).
Indexed PNG (less than 256 colors) is actually always smaller than gif, so I use that most of the time.
For computer generated graphics (i.e. drawn by yourself in Photoshop, Gimp, etc.) JPG is out of the question, because it is lossy - i.e. you get random gray pixels. For static images, PNG is better in every way: more colors, scalable transparency (say, 10% transparent, .gif only supports 0% and 100%), but there is a problem that some versions of Internet Explorer don't do PNG transparency correctly, so you get flat non-transparent background that looks ugly. If you don't care about those IE users, go for PNG.
BTW, if you want animations, go for GIF.
PNG is a 100% replacement for GIF files and is supported by all web browsers you are likely to encounter.
There are very, very few situations where GIF would be preferable. The most important one is animation--the GIF89a standard supports animation, and virtually every browser supports it, but the plain old PNG format does not--you would need to use MNG for that, which has limited browser support.
Virtually all browsers support single-bit transparency in PNG files (the type of transparency offered by the GIF format). There is a lack of support in IE6 for PNG's full 8-bit transparency, but that can be rectified for most situations by a little CSS magic.
If your PNG files are coming out larger than equivalent GIF files, it is almost certainly because your source image has more than 256 colors. GIF files are indexed to a maximum palette of 256 colors, while PNG files in most graphics programs are saved by default in a 24-bit lossless format. If file size is more important than accurate colors, save the file as an 8-bit indexed PNG and it should be equivalent to GIF or better.
It is possible to "hack" a GIF file to have more than 256 colors using a combination of animation frames with do-not-replace flags and multiple palettes, but this approach has been virtually forgotten about since the advent of PNG.
A major problem with GIFs are that it is a patent-encumbered format (EDIT: This is apparently no longer true). If you don't care about that, feel free to use GIFs. PNGs have a lot more flexibility over GIFs, particularly in the area of colorspace, but that flexibility often means you'll want to "optimize" the PNGs before publishing them. A web search should uncover tools for your platform for this.
Of course, if you want animation, GIF is the only way to go, since MNG was basically a non-starter for some reason.
"It may just be the tools I'm using, but GIF files usually seem to be a bit smaller than a comparible PNG, but using them just seems so 1987."
It probably is your tools. From the PNG FAQ:
"There are two main reasons behind this phenomenon: comparing apples and oranges (that is, not comparing the same image types), and using bad tools." continued...
But you could always try saving as both (using the same colour depth) and see which comes out smaller.
Of course, if you want to standardise on one graphic format for your site, PNG is likely to be the best one to use.
Personally I use gif's quite a bit for my images, as they work everywhere, obviously your transparency limitation is one key element that would direct someone towards a specific format.
I don't see any downfalls to using gif's.
If they get smaller and you have nothing to gain from using the features PNG offers (which is alpha channel transparency and more than 256 colors) then I see no reason why you should use PNG.
gif files will tend to be a little smaller since they don't support a transparency alpha channel (and maybe for some other reasons). Personally, I don't feel the size difference is really worth worrying about nearly as much as it used to. Most people are using the web with some sort of broadband now, so I doubt they will notice a difference.
It's probably more important to use the type of images that your manipulation tools work best with.
Plus, I like the ability to put an image on any background and have a drop shadow work, which points me more towards the png format.
I usually use gif's because of the size, but there is also png-8 which is 256 colours as well.
If you need fancy semi-transparent stuff then use png-24.
I usually use the 'save for web' feature in photoshop, which lets you fiddle with filetype, number of colours etc and see the result before you save. Of course I would use the smallest possible which still looks good in my eyes.
I use jpg for all non-transparent images. You can control the compression, which I like. I found this web site that compares the two. jpg is smaller and looks better.