How can you export an Inkscape SVG file to a PDF and maintain the integrity of the image?

Question

I've been having a devil of a time getting Inkscape to export PDFs cleanly and there don't seem to be very many answers out there on all the various wikis and tutorials. In particular, transparencies are a bit of a crap-shoot - sometimes the transparency will disappear and sometimes it'll be made into a solid block.I've tried fiddling with the save-as-PDF settings in Inkscape and I've tried printing to a PDF using CutePDF with less than satisfactory results. Is there some method of exporting my file - or some method of *creating* my file - that I can use to get predictable results?

Answer 1

There are two things that you can do. The first is to go to File, then select Print. Select the PDF option then go to the rendering tab. In the rendering tab, switch to Bitmap and change the dpi to 300. However, this trick will only work 50% of the time.

Instead use the XML editor. Separate to your Inkscape, go to your notes app or Notepad in your computer and type in the following: inkscapeSVGinputFile.svg --export-area-drawing --batch-process --export-type=pdf --export-filename=output.pdf

Now go back to Inkscape and go to the Edit tab and select XML editor. When the editor opens, select your object(s), as his will guide your to what line of the editor it is located. Click the option, new element node And paste in the little code from your nodes. Save the new changes, the Print as PDF. Make sure to keep the rendering as vector this time. I tried this out myself and the designs came out crisp. The transparency of the objects also stayed. Hopefully this will help you.

Note: the code I showed you is for Inkscape 1.0, the version I have downloaded on my computer. If you have any version prior to that, it may not fully work.