How to include SVG diagrams in LaTeX?

Question

I'm making all my diagrams in SVG format using Inkscape and then I export them to some other format (e.g. PDF, EPS or PNG). I wrote a short script that does this for me automatically, but I'd like to avoid this step, if possible --- sometimes the conversion from SVG converts the text labels into vectors, and that's annoying. Hence the question:

Is there a way to include SVG diagrams directly without conversion to an intermediate format?

Package suggestions, or instructions for specific LaTeX distribution welcome. Tips and personal experience on which tools you have found to be working reliably would be also appreciated.

Answer 1

The latest alpha version of Inkscape supports PDF+LaTeX export. The graphic itself is exported as PDF, but all text can be put into a .tex file. This way all the text appears in your document font.

The latest Inkscape version can be found on the SourceForge Project site (v0.48).

There is also a free article about the export on CTAN: How to include an SVG image in LaTeX.

EDIT:

After this answer got so many votes over the time, here a little update: The LaTeX feature is now implemented in Inkscape (as mentioned in the comments). You can download the current stable release of Inkscape.

Further, here are two good things that I found over time of using this feature. Both are mentioned in the linked pdf, but I missed those hints for quite some time.

When you insert text, there is a little square in the textbox which shows you the alignment of the text. For example if you want to have an arrow pointing from your text to an abject, make sure the justification is correct.

For some time I was thinking, that text could not handle line breaks, but it is possible if you flow text into a shape. Draw a rectangular shape, write some text, select both and then go in the text menu to "Flow into frame". The shortcut for this is Alt + W.

Answer 2

As the other answers already mention, the TeX backends do not support the SVG file format. That means there is no other way than to convert the SVG images.

However, ConTeXt provides transparent conversion (complete list: ConTeXt Dependencies) of several file formats that are not natively supported by LuaTeX, e.g.:

• converting PostScript images to PDF
• converting GIF and TIFF images
• converting SVG and compressed SVG

The SVG conversion is done in the background using inkscape. This means from the users' point of view there is no difference if a PNG or a SVG file is included. Example:

\starttext
  \externalfigure [image.svg]
\stoptext

A single compilation run with context file creates the temporary image m_k_i_v_image.pdf which is inkscapes output and is transparently included.

Result of the code above (a file only containing the SVG image image.svg):

Answer 3

If you figures are sufficiently simple TikZ 2.0 provides the SVG path operation:

\path . . . svg[<options>] "<path data>" ... ;

See the pgfmanual section 14.12. Only SVG 1.1 path data is supported.

Answer 4

Inkscape has a(n experimental) tikz exporter: link. (I've never used it but perhaps someone who has will stop by and give a few more details.)

Answer 5

Some additional information concerning Andrew's answer. As far as I know, LaTeX does not support including SVG files directly.

Answer 6

You may also want to look at Ipe. It is a graphics editor similar to Inkscape, but integrates tightly with LaTeX, and exports eps and pdf files that are easy to include into TeX documents. It also comes with a svgtoipe script that converts many svg figures to the ipe format, so that they can be edited with Ipe. I'm not sure how well does the conversion handle text, but it is easy to add the necessary labels in Ipe, and since Ipe uses LaTeX to render text, you can have your labels match your text perfectly.

Answer 7

There is now (at time of writing for about a month) a package svg on CTAN and also included into the big TeX distributions.

Every SVG file given by the command \includesvg will under the hood be converted with the help of some additional programs, which at least on Windows are not installed by default (the package claims, it wouldn’t run in Windows, but see below):

• Inkscape (for using the technique already mentioned in other answers)
• ImageMagick (actually the included convert)
• only MiKTeX users: Xpdf (actually the included pdftops)

Notes:

1. For compilation pdflatex needs the command line switch --shell-escape.

2. All executables/binaries must be located in the search path. In Windows only the “ImageMagick” installer does this by default. For inkscape and pstopdf one needs to add the paths oneself, or I would recommend for each a batch file in the binary path of your local texmf tree (which anyway should be itself in the search path). Additonal hint for MiKTeX users: Create a local texmf tree in MiKTeX.

   inkscape.cmd (it must get this name!):

   @echo off
   <path-to-inkscape>\inkscape.exe %*
   

   pdftops.cmd (it also must be named this way!), not needed for Users of TeX Live:

   @echo off
   <path-to-Xpdf>\pdftops.exe %*
   

   _{Of course, adjust the paths to your local settings.}

3. The package uses the *nix specific commands mv and rm. In Windows we can emulate them once more with batch scripts, which again must get the names given here and should be put into the bin folder of the local texmf tree:

   mv.cmd:

   @echo off
   move /Y %*
   

   The switch /Y overwrites existing files without any question! I introduced it here for the use with TeX editors.

   rm.cmd:

   @echo off
   del /Q %*
   

   The switch /Q also suppresses any question.

Answer 8

There are several SVG → PDF converters available, e.g. Apache Batik's rasterizer.

Answer 9

Having read your comment, maybe a combination of Inkscape and the overpic package may be helpful. This package allows you to write any LaTeX commands on top of an existing picture. A colleague of mine uses it to draw pictures of free-form curves, for example, and adds all labels and points of interests manually. The package allows you to display a grid, so it should not be too tedious---depending on the size of your picture, of course.

Answer 10

For including the SVG in LaTeX, you can refer to Marin H answer. But as Latex does not natively support SVG, you may run in to font size and placement issues. During the conversion from SVG to LaTeX as Inkscape carries out, all the positions are changed to absolute X, Y values, thus your alignments are lost in the conversion, as it does not recognize it.

Unless you exactly use the same LaTeX font size/type in Inkscape you will get a different output from what you see in inkscape. I gave up this route due to these problems and went for the normal SVG->PDF inclusion.

The example below illustrates the problem. The file inkscape-pdf.pdf_tex is generated using the PDF+LaTeX option in Inkscape.

The original Inkscape figure:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,xcolor}
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\def\svgwidth{\columnwidth}
\input{inkscape-pdf.pdf_tex}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\def\svgwidth{0.5\columnwidth}
\input{inkscape-pdf.pdf_tex}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

LaTeX output:

Answer 11

If you are using LyX, then it is simple; add the directory of Inkscape to the "Paths" in LyX's settings, reconfigure twice, and you can include SVG files just like any other files.

If you are writing LaTeX code, maybe the package svg-inkscape will help you. (I never tried)

Answer 12

Although this is a bit of a late answer, I just noticed this question today. For quite some time, I've been using a small package which I wrote to do this (as well as including simple LyX files), which I've called "cludein" -- it works well with POSIX operating-systems, and requires running pdflatex with the -shell-escape flag.

Not sure if I should post it here, but since I don't have it anywhere else on the internet at the moment, why not:

% cludein.sty: Include various file formats directly in a LaTeX file

% *****************************************************************************
% *******   NOTE: pdflatex must be run with the -shell-escape flag in order for
% *******         this package to work.
% *****************************************************************************

% This package provides the following commands:
%    \includesvg -- include an SVG image
%    \svgfig     -- create a Figure environment with an SVG image
%    \includelyx -- include a LyX image
%
% USAGE:
%   \includesvg[width]{path/to/dir/of/svg/file}{name-of-svg-file-without-extension}
%
%   \svgfig[placement][label][width]{figname}{caption-text}
%       -- default arguments can be used with an empty []:
%       for example, \svgfig[tb][][5cm]{myfigname}{Some caption text.}
%       uses the default label of fig:myfigname (in this example).
%
%   \includelyx{path/to/dir/of/lyx/file}{name-of-lyx-file-without-extension}

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e} 
\RequirePackage[multidot]{grffile} % allow multiple dots in graphics filenames
\RequirePackage{xargs}
\RequirePackage{color}
\RequirePackage{graphicx}

\ProvidesPackage{cludein}[2011/01/17 v0.1
                          direct inclusion of various file formats]
\typeout{-> cludein.sty <- by Mark Edgington, 2011}
%
%%%%%%%%%%%% BEGIN: auto-include SVG / LyX files %%%%%%%%%%%%%

% usage: \includesvg[width]{path/to/dir/of/svg/file}{name-of-svg-file-without-extension}
% if source file doesn't exist, nothing is done...


\newcommand{\executeiffilenewer}[3]{%
\ifnum\pdfstrcmp{\pdffilemoddate{#1}}%
{\pdffilemoddate{#2}}>0%
{\immediate\write18{#3}}\fi%
}


\newcommand{\includesvg}[3][\undefined]{%
\IfFileExists{#2/#3.svg}{%
\executeiffilenewer{#2/#3.svg}{#2/output/#3.pdf}%
{mkdir -p #2/output ; %
inkscape -z -D --file=#2/#3.svg %
--export-pdf=#2/output/#3.pdf --export-latex}%
\graphicspath{{#2/output/}}% search here for output pdf
% set figure width
\ifx#1\undefined
    \let\svgwidth\undefined
\else
    \def\svgwidth{#1}
\fi
% properly center a potentially overwide image
\makebox[\textwidth][c]{%
  \input{#2/output/#3.pdf_tex}%
}%
}{\colorbox[rgb]{0.7,0.7,0.7}{\textcolor{black}{MISSING FIGURE}} }% end of IfFileExists
}


\newcommand{\includesvgnobox}[3][\undefined]{%
\IfFileExists{#2/#3.svg}{%
\executeiffilenewer{#2/#3.svg}{#2/output/#3.pdf}%
{mkdir -p #2/output ; %
inkscape -z -D --file=#2/#3.svg %
--export-pdf=#2/output/#3.pdf --export-latex}%
\graphicspath{{#2/output/}}% search here for output pdf
% set figure width
\ifx#1\undefined
    \let\svgwidth\undefined
\else
    \def\svgwidth{#1}
\fi
% properly center a potentially overwide image
\input{#2/output/#3.pdf_tex}%
}{\colorbox[rgb]{0.7,0.7,0.7}{\textcolor{black}{MISSING FIGURE}} }% end of IfFileExists
}

% TODO: make secondary \includesvg command which instead of directly exporting to PDF (which
% currently is uncompressed with inkscape), does something which results in a compressed PDF. (maybe
% postprocess the uncompressed pdf?)

% usage: \svgfig[placement][label][width]{figname}{caption-text}
% -- default arguments can be used with an empty []:
%    for example, \svgfig[tb][][5cm]{myfigname}{Some caption text.}
%    uses the default label of fig:myfigname (in this example).
\newcommandx{\svgfig}[5][1=tb, 2=\undefined, 3=\undefined, usedefault]{%
\begin{figure}[#1]%
\begin{center}%
  \includesvg[#3]{svg}{#4}%
  \caption{#5}%
\ifx#2\undefined%
    \label{fig:#4}%
\else%
    \label{#2}%
\fi%
\end{center}%
\end{figure}%
}

% export and include lyx files!
% sed is used to keep only the stuff inside the document-environment 
% sed command is: sed -i '0,/\\begin{document}/d; /\\end{document}/,$d' file-to-replace.tex
\newcommand{\includelyx}[2][lyx]{%
\executeiffilenewer{#1/#2.lyx}{#1/output/#2.lyx_tex}%
{
mkdir -p #1/output ; %
lyx -e pdflatex #1/#2.lyx ; %
mv #1/#2.tex #1/output/#2.lyx_tex ; %
/bin/sed -i '%
0,/\string\\begin{document}/d; /\string\\end{document}/,$d
' %
#1/output/#2.lyx_tex}
\input{#1/output/#2.lyx_tex}%
}

%%%%%%%%%%%% END: auto-include SVG / LyX files %%%%%%%%%%%%%