Edit SVG

[WalterBeiter]

Hi. Is there a way to edit imported sag files? I made some sine curves in "Grapher" and exportet to PDF. I tried to convert them to curves, which did nothing. Same with SVG files. 

 

I want to edit them, so that the sine curves do not overlap the whole graphic. I want to crop it. The vector crop tool is just a rectangle, which does not work for me. 

 

You can see in the Screenshot, the yellow curves overlap. I want them to be just inside the speech bubble. Anyone knows how to do this? A just can't use boolean operations like substract, ect. They are greyed out. 

[Andy Somerfield]

I cannot see a screenshot, but I will guess:

 

You have probably placed the file as a placed, embedded document. If you do File -> Open and open the SVG that way, it will behave as you expect.

 

You can also edit the placed document if you wish - simply double click it using the Move Tool.

 

Hope this helps,

 

AndyS

[Highvoltage]

There should really be a command for converting placed SVGs to curves. It's very counterproductive to open and copy paste each element. Not to mention it will change the size to the original one.

[Baron]

We need the ability to drag and drop, and copy and paste, SVG files directly into Affinity Designer documents as vector graphics, not as embedded SVG documents. I personally never have seen a use for using embedded SVG documents. I always want the shape data, not the embedded documents.

 

The Affinity Designer software actually already has support for directly pasting SVG files as vector graphics instead of embedded SVG documents. When pasting text that contains SVG file data, it pastes as vector graphics, not as embedded SVG documents. As proof, you can copy and paste this following SVG data directly into an Affinity Designer document and you will see it paste as an SVG rectangle, not as an embedded SVG document:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1">
   <rect x="25" y="25" width="200" height="200" fill="lime" stroke-width="4" stroke="pink" />
</svg>

 

However, if you save that SVG data as a text file, name it rect.svg, and drag and drop the same SVG data as a file from the Windows explorer into Affinity Designer, it then gets added as an embedded SVG document, which is not what I would ever want. I don't know why anyone would want that. Why is this even a feature?

 

This is not a complex feature request. It's a simple request. Adding a drag and drop operation option that has the same functionality as that which already exists for the clipboard paste operation (when pasting SVG text data) is a very simple addition to Affinity Designer, as it would be mostly reusing pre-existing code that's already in Affinity Designer.

 

 

I need this direct drag and drop support pretty badly.

 

I am currently trying to import 926 SVG icons in order to create Affinity Designer assets from them. When I open a new document, drag and drop say 100 of these SVG icon files, they get added as embedded documents. I then have to double click each and every single icon one after then next to open their embedded document to access their vector shapes in order to import them as assets.

 

It will take a massive amount of time to do this for all 926 SVG icons. This is a simple task that should only take a few minutes at most, not hours to perform.

Note that if I didn't care about the icon file name then I can use the free Inkscape software, drag and drop these same SVG icon files right into Inkscape, and then select all, and then copy and paste them right into an Affinity Designer document, and then they paste as vector graphics, not as embedded documents. I can then select all and import them as assets. This only takes a few minutes to complete for hundreds of SVG icons. I would use this paste from Inkscape workaround if I could, but I lose all of the SVG file names if I paste them that way, so this is not an option for me at this time. I need the file names to remain.

 

Is there any other known workaround currently available that keeps the SVG icon file names and won't take hours to perform for hundreds of SVG icons?

[JustinHay1]

On 4/19/2018 at 4:57 PM, Baron said:

We need the ability to drag and drop, and copy and paste, SVG files directly into Affinity Designer documents as vector graphics, not as embedded SVG documents. I personally never have seen a use for using embedded SVG documents. I always want the shape data, not the embedded documents.

 

The Affinity Designer software actually already has support for directly pasting SVG files as vector graphics instead of embedded SVG documents. When pasting text that contains SVG file data, it pastes as vector graphics, not as embedded SVG documents. As proof, you can copy and paste this following SVG data directly into an Affinity Designer document and you will see it paste as an SVG rectangle, not as an embedded SVG document:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1">
   <rect x="25" y="25" width="200" height="200" fill="lime" stroke-width="4" stroke="pink" />
</svg>

 

However, if you save that SVG data as a text file, name it rect.svg, and drag and drop the same SVG data as a file from the Windows explorer into Affinity Designer, it then gets added as an embedded SVG document, which is not what I would ever want. I don't know why anyone would want that. Why is this even a feature?

 

This is not a complex feature request. It's a simple request. Adding a drag and drop operation option that has the same functionality as that which already exists for the clipboard paste operation (when pasting SVG text data) is a very simple addition to Affinity Designer, as it would be mostly reusing pre-existing code that's already in Affinity Designer.

 

 

I need this direct drag and drop support pretty badly.

 

I am currently trying to import 926 SVG icons in order to create Affinity Designer assets from them. When I open a new document, drag and drop say 100 of these SVG icon files, they get added as embedded documents. I then have to double click each and every single icon one after then next to open their embedded document to access their vector shapes in order to import them as assets.

 

It will take a massive amount of time to do this for all 926 SVG icons. This is a simple task that should only take a few minutes at most, not hours to perform.

Note that if I didn't care about the icon file name then I can use the free Inkscape software, drag and drop these same SVG icon files right into Inkscape, and then select all, and then copy and paste them right into an Affinity Designer document, and then they paste as vector graphics, not as embedded documents. I can then select all and import them as assets. This only takes a few minutes to complete for hundreds of SVG icons. I would use this paste from Inkscape workaround if I could, but I lose all of the SVG file names if I paste them that way, so this is not an option for me at this time. I need the file names to remain.

 

Is there any other known workaround currently available that keeps the SVG icon file names and won't take hours to perform for hundreds of SVG icons?

I'm experiencing the same thing. Have you managed to figure out a workaround?
Is there any quick key command or right click option to convert an embedded SVG document into SVG Vector files?

You would think that the default for a Scalable VECTOR Graphic would be the graphical information.........

[v_kyr]

AFAIK no nothing changed here so far for that behavior, you can only copy/paste text/objects via the system pasteboard into AD. - File drag'n'drop will as before handle placed SVG files as embedded docs, so the same way as with other supported file formats too here.

[Wosven]

For now, to do this you need to work with text editors to modify the SVG files, and concatenate them  before importing the code in AD.

 

 

For example, with those icons:  https://feathericons.com 

It can be done on Windows using Notepad++ using the macro I  described in this thread, adding groupe related to the file's name

 

Once all your file were processed and have a group with the file's name as ID, you need to concatenate them in one and unique text file (SVG) (all the code should end up in a same file, on Windows, I use a simple app like CONCAT 1.4 for such things; it's not picky and easy to use).

 

Once all the code in one file, and we need to modify it a little bit more so the app won't have a heart attack trying to open this mess

We need to replace the beginning of each object <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" by "<g" , and the end tag "</svg>" by "</g>" to only have groups in the code.

 

We just need to add back the tags "<svg>" and "</svg>" at the begining and at the end of the code for AD to understand it.

 

 

Next step, you save the file with another name, and you can open it in AD:

You add the category or sub-category needed in AD assets, you select all the icons, and you add them from selection:

 

Voilà!

I'm sure that's faster than doing this manually. Depending of the code, perhaps you'l have to modify some steps like replacing "<svg xmlns..." if there'sno "xmlns" value.
On OS X, I would have use TextWrangler for editing the code, and perhaps a simple command line to concatenate the files, but there are certainly options for this.

[v_kyr]

For the assets panel, you can drag'n'drop such SVG icon files directly in into an assets category from the systems Finder/Explorer.

[R C-R]

On 4/19/2018 at 6:57 PM, Baron said:

However, if you save that SVG data as a text file, name it rect.svg, and drag and drop the same SVG data as a file from the Windows explorer into Affinity Designer, it then gets added as an embedded SVG document, which is not what I would ever want. I don't know why anyone would want that. Why is this even a feature?

Just guessing, but I think it may be because for all file types Affinity treats as embedded documents (not just SVGs), the "Replace Document" option provides a quick & easy way to do that, for example so a different file (possibly of a different file type) could be substituted for the embedded one at any time. The replacement file might be one provided by a client, or by a colleague working on a different aspect of the same project, or used for anything else that might need to be replaced to meet changing needs.

Also, editing an embedded document creates a separate history step list & optionally its own snapshots independent of that of the parent document, which may be quite useful in some workflows, particularly those involving multiple documents embedded in one parent document.

As for adding a large number of SVG files to an Affinity app as assets, personally I would never want to do that for several reasons. One is that it is an 'all the eggs in one basket' approach that could create extra work if for example it was ever necessary to reset the app. Another more important one for me is the Affinity Assets panel does not offer any kind of search feature, so finding a particular asset among what could be hundreds or even thousands of them in various category & subcategory hierarchies would be a tedious, time consuming task. So what I do instead is rely on the search features provided by the OS so I can search on filetype, file name, tag, or whatever other metadata type the OS supports to locate files saved on my system (& in my backups!) bypassing the Assets panel completely for everything other than a relatively small number of assets I use frequently.

However, since this is something you & some other users do want to do, the workaround provided by @Wosven should simplify that considerably. If that isn't acceptable, I think your best bet is to post something to the feature request forum.

[Wosven]

6 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

For the assets panel, you can drag'n'drop such SVG icon files directly in into an assets category from the systems Finder/Explorer.

If I do this, they are unnamed, only "grouper" as tooltip for each one (it means "to group" in French), so you won't be able to search the 900+ icons but visually.

[v_kyr]

39 minutes ago, Wosven said:

If I do this, they are unnamed, only "grouper" as tooltip for each one (it means "to group" in French), so you won't be able to search the 900+ icons but visually.

Ah Ok I understand, it's a matter how those have been initially created, if with defined group/symbol IDs or not. Otherwise there will be no associated naming showup or layer naming and you would have sadly to rework all SVGs accordingly.

[R C-R]

57 minutes ago, Wosven said:

If I do this, they are unnamed, only "grouper" as tooltip for each one (it means "to group" in French), so you won't be able to search the 900+ icons but visually.

When I just tested this on my iMac, each of the dropped SVG files is named with the name of the dragged file (including the .svg suffix) ... but only if in the original SVG file all of its elements are in a single "(Layer)" container object when opened directly in an Affinity app. Otherwise, it is named "Group."

There may be other factors involved but I am not familiar enough with all the various ways objects can be encoded in SVG documents to know what they might be.

As for searching by name, I wish the search field at the bottom of the Asset window could search on all categories, not just the currently selected one. I think that would be much more useful.

[Wosven]

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

As for searching by name, I wish the search field at the bottom of the Asset window could search on all categories, not just the currently selected one. I think that would be much more useful.

An option for "local" or "global" research would be really usefull. In other panels too, like styles or brushes.