Convert SVG to curves

[COBRASoft]

Hi,

I'm placing an SVG file in Designer and try to convert to curves, but the menu item is disabled.

This works perfectly with the same file in PagePlus X9.

what am I doing wrong?

Greetings,

Sigurd

[Sean P]

Hi Cobrasoft,

This is not possible to do with placed SVG files. You will have to open the SVG and copy and paste it in your document to edit it. I'm moving this to Feature Requests as I can see how it would be useful!

[COBRASoft]

Secially since it worked so well in PagePlus. I hope you guys can implement this.

[Friksel]

On 9/1/2018 at 2:04 PM, COBRASoft said:

Hi,

I'm placing an SVG file in Designer and try to convert to curves, but the menu item is disabled.

This works perfectly with the same file in PagePlus X9.

what am I doing wrong?

Greetings,

Sigurd

Hi @COBRASoft , I was intrigued by your question and tried it myself. When I place a SVG the SVG will be an embedded object in the designer file, so you cannot edit it directly. But when you doubleclick that embedded file on the canvas, the svg, you can go and edit the vectors like you're used to, including converting to curves. That looks to me as exactly what you want. But I might be missing something here?

If you want to vectors themselves to be placed inside another vector file, than you can also copy and paste layers and stuff directly in to the file. That way you don't have the svg embedded, but copied into the file. And then you also can convert to curves.

Maybe this helps?

[COBRASoft]

It's not exactly the same since you're 'leaving' your document. In X9 you could convert to curves and use them around if you wanted to.

A simple example is when using svg icons. Sometimes you want to use color gradients from one to the other or mix different parts together to make new icons.

I'll try this 'new' way with double clicking and see how it goes (copy / paste).

One thing I noticed already is that the scale is 'off': I place an svg file on a document, double click on it, copy a part, paste it back on the main document... size is different compared with original. this shouldn't happen.

[jer]

On 9/12/2018 at 9:24 AM, Friksel said:

Hi @COBRASoft , I was intrigued by your question and tried it myself. When I place a SVG the SVG will be an embedded object in the designer file, so you cannot edit it directly. But when you doubleclick that embedded file on the canvas, the svg, you can go and edit the vectors like you're used to, including converting to curves. That looks to me as exactly what you want. But I might be missing something here?

If you want to vectors themselves to be placed inside another vector file, than you can also copy and paste layers and stuff directly in to the file. That way you don't have the svg embedded, but copied into the file. And then you also can convert to curves.

Maybe this helps?

@Friksel  Thanks for solving a problem I was having using the "new" Stock Palette feature in Affinity Designer. I have rewritten your suggestion here in case anyone searches the forum for "Stock Vectors" or similar...

In the Stock Palette, the Pixabay option offers a helpful checkbox to look for just vectors but a vector dragged into your document will be an Embedded Object Layer, so you cannot edit it directly. Double click that Embedded object in your document, not the Layer itself, and it opens in a new document as an editable vector. Switch to that document and the vector has been converted to curves on separate layers. You can edit them there, then copy and paste the vector back into your original document. Or you can simply copy and paste the converted vector layers back into your original document and then resize and edit them.