How do I get pencil-tool lines (and text) to be exported as simple strokes rather than outlines?

[aholub]

When I create a simple line drawing using the pencil tool and then export to SVG, each line is actually rendered as an outline that's filled in. This is a problem for me. I just want each stroke to be a simple stroke. Is there any way to do that?

 

To provide some background, I'm using Affinity Designer to create images for import to a whiteboard-animation application (Sparkol's VideoScribe), which will create an animation of a hand holding a pencil drawing the image. It does that just by following the strokes in the SVG file. As it stands, that virtual hand draws the outline of each line, then the fill suddenly appears, which tells me that the SVG file actually holds outlines, not single strokes. With other SVG editors that I've used (Inkscape, Illustrator, Ink on an iPad), it just draws the line---No outline---so I know this is possible.

 

Interestingly, when I go into outline-view mode, the lines appear to be single strokes---there's no visible outline, however that's not the way that it's stored in the SVG file.

 

The same issues apply to text. I want each letter drawn using single strokes, not outlines, but converting to curves doesn't do that. Instead, each letter is individually outlined then filled in.

 

So, how can I get each stroke drawn with the pencil tool (and ideally, each letter in the text) to be exported to SVG as single strokes without outlines?

 

Thanks!

[MattP]

Hi aholub,

 

Do you happen to have pressure on any of these lines? Also, maybe you have a line join style set that SVG is unhappy with so we have to convert it to an outline to make it look the same? Would you be able to share a .afdesign file that shows the problem so we can give you advice? :)

 

Thanks!

Matt

[aholub]

Hi Matt. Thanks for your help!

 

Getting rid of pressure on the line turned it into a single stroke---thanks. However, I'm still having issues with text.

 

First, is there any way to render text as single strokes instead of outlines (an SVG font, perhaps)? I'm using ComicSans, but anything that looks like hand-written text would work.

 

Also, the text moves around! That is, when I export an SVG and import the SVG to my animation app, the text is in a different place. (I've attached both the .afdesign and .svg files along with a screen shot that shows the problem.) Any way to prevent that from happening?

 

Thanks.

Untitled.afdesign

Untitled.svg

[Dave Harris]

In all the font file formats we support, the text is stored as an outline rather than a single stroke. I'm sorry but that's all we have available to work with. I can't think of any clever way of converting the outline into a stroke, other than tracing it by hand.

 

Have you tried the public beta, which can be downloaded from elsewhere in this forum? It has some SVG improvements. Does the SVG text show in the right place if you re-import it into Affinity, or if you look at the SVG using Preview or a web browser? (I won't have access to a Mac for a while, else I'd test this myself.)

[laididai]

Hi,

 

I have a similar problem with using Affinity Designer for VideoScribe.

 

Removing the pressure solved the outline problem for me, too.

 

But the width of the lines seem to get lost after exporting to SVG. Also the transparency settings are off. I've attached my .afdesign and svg file for you to see. I need the transparency and width exactly to be like in the afdesign file in order for VideoScribe to correctly draw it out.

 

Please help! I hope there's a solution.

 

This is so time consuming I'm close to going back to AI. :-(

 

 

helpit_logo_svg.afdesign

helpit_logo_svg2.svg

[MEB]

Hi laididai,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

I'm not sure where's the problem here. The exported SVG seems identical to what Designer shows.

Which version of Affinity Designer are you running?