SVG attributes passthrough

[Gunther47]

I have an SVG file generated by another application.  It contains several custom attributes, both in the <svg> tag and in each of the <g> tags within.

I would like to load this SVG into Designer, edit it, and then save... without losing the custom information from the original file.

But it seems that not only does Designer remove all the original metadata, it adds in its own namespace and attributes throughout the new SVG.

Is there a way to preserve the information all the way through the process?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
I am fairly sure that when you Open an SVG in the Affinity applications the SVG will be converted to ‘native’ Affinity layers and there’s nothing you can do about that.
However, I haven’t done any testing with Placed SVGs so that might be something worth trying.
If you need to keep the SVG ‘as is’ then an SVG editor, such as Inkscape, may be a better solution for you in this instance.

[Palatino]

The easiest way would be to modify the file as desired and export it as SVG. Then open both SVGs in a text editor and swap the changed source code.

[Gunther47]

Thanks for your answers.  So if I'm understanding correctly, Affinity converts all documents to its own native format and then reconverts them for export, rather than editing and resaving in the document's original format?

That would explain why line objects get converted to SVG curves and paths as well.

GarryP, I have tried your help suggestion of placing, rather than opening, my files.  Unfortunately I got the same result.

Inkscape exports all the metadata correctly, although it does add its own data too, but isn't nearly as nice to use, and doesn't integrate with publisher and photo as nicely. Illustrator does the job well keeping svg in svg and saving something nearly identical to the original file, but costs too much.

Palatino, yours would be a workable solution, but the custom attributes are spread throughout each document, not just in the header, and it's really not practical to edit every document by hand; that's what computers are for  

Just when I thought I'd found the perfect suite of tools, this one tiny detail gets in the way.  But I appreciate your help!

[David in Яuislip]

Try saving as a Plain SVG in Inkscape, you don't get all the Inkscape clutter