SVG as page layout in Latex

Question

I know we can use parshape and the shapepar package to have customized paragraph shapes, but I wonder if it is possible to read an SVG file and use it as page layout?

A possible solution might be to use luaxml and read SVG files to recognize boxes or closed-pathes, by some order, and then use parshape. However I wonder how boxes can be connected to each other to allow the text flow between them, and how boxes can be used repeatedly until the whole text is consumed and typesetted especially across several pages. The tcolorbox package with magazine library have some similar features but not sure if it can be used in that way.

Is there any solution (or similar thing) available? The main intent is not to have odd paragraph shapes but to use SVG editing tools for easy page layout editing.

Answer 1

Here is a proof of concept using LuaXML for SVG parsing and Flowfram for flow frames.

I've created a package svgflowfram.sty:

\ProvidesPackage{svgflowfram}
\RequirePackage{flowfram}
\RequirePackage{xparse}
\RequirePackage{luacode}
\begin{luacode*}
local load_frames = require "svgframes"
function print_frame(x,y, width, height)
tex.print(string.format("\\newflowframe{%isp}{%isp}{%isp}{%isp}", width, height, x, y))
end

\end{luacode*}
\NewDocumentCommand\svgframes{o m o}{%
  \IfNoValueTF{#1}{\def\svgflowfram@pages{}}{\def\svgflowfram@pages{#1}}
  \IfNoValueTF{#3}{\def\svgflowfram@name{}}{\def\svgflowfram@name{#3}}
  \directlua{
    local frames = load_frames("\luatexluaescapestring{#2}")
    for _, frame in ipairs(frames) do
      print_frame(frame.x, frame.y, frame.width, frame.height)
    end
  }
}

\endinput

It provides a command \svgframes. It can consume three parameters, one is mandatory, others optional. The optional arguments should add support for the page specification used by Flowframe and optional name for the frames. These features are not implemented yet, so you can just use the mandatory argument, which is the SVG file name.

The SVG frame parsing is implemented in the svgframes.lua library:

local domobj = require "luaxml-domobject"

-- just assume we use milimeters at the moment
local function get_dimen(el, dimen_attr)
  return tex.sp(el:get_attribute(dimen_attr) .. "mm")
end
function load_frames(svgfile, name)
  local f=io.open(svgfile, "r")
  if not f then return nil, "Cannot open file " ..  svgfile end
  local content = f:read("*all")
  f:close()
  local dom = domobj.parse(content)
  local frames = {}
  for _, r in ipairs(dom:query_selector("rect")) do
    local x, y, width, height = get_dimen(r, "x"), get_dimen(r, "y"), get_dimen(r, "width"), get_dimen(r, "height")
    y = tex.pageheight - (y + height) 
    frames[#frames+1] = {x=x, y=y, width=width, height=height}
  end
  return frames
end

return load_frames

It provides function load_frames which loads the SVG file using LuaXML DOM funnctions, loops over all <rect> elements. The dimensions are converted to millimeters and then to sp. The y dimension needs to be calculated relative to the page height.

It can be used in this way:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{svgflowfram}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[margin=0pt]{geometry}
\svgframes{frames.svg}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-10]
\end{document}

Sample SVG file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!-- Created with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) -->

<svg
   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
   xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
   xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
   xmlns:sodipodi="http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd"
   xmlns:inkscape="http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape"
   width="210mm"
   height="297mm"
   viewBox="0 0 210 297"
   version="1.1"
   id="svg8"
   inkscape:version="0.92.4 (unknown)"
   sodipodi:docname="frames.svg">
  <defs
     id="defs2" />
  <sodipodi:namedview
     id="base"
     pagecolor="#ffffff"
     bordercolor="#666666"
     borderopacity="1.0"
     inkscape:pageopacity="0.0"
     inkscape:pageshadow="2"
     inkscape:zoom="0.41"
     inkscape:cx="-316.1324"
     inkscape:cy="554.28571"
     inkscape:document-units="mm"
     inkscape:current-layer="layer1"
     showgrid="false"
     inkscape:window-width="1920"
     inkscape:window-height="1016"
     inkscape:window-x="0"
     inkscape:window-y="27"
     inkscape:window-maximized="1" />
  <metadata
     id="metadata5">
    <rdf:RDF>
      <cc:Work
         rdf:about="">
        <dc:format>image/svg+xml</dc:format>
        <dc:type
           rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage" />
        <dc:title></dc:title>
      </cc:Work>
    </rdf:RDF>
  </metadata>
  <g
     inkscape:label="Vrstva 1"
     inkscape:groupmode="layer"
     id="layer1">
    <rect
       style="fill:#ffffff;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.27966458;stroke-miterlimit:0.30000001;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0"
       id="rect815"
       width="58.724594"
       height="40.655487"
       x="17.42378"
       y="33.061993" />
    <rect
       style="fill:#ffffff;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.27966458;stroke-miterlimit:0.30000001;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0"
       id="rect817"
       width="82.601608"
       height="36.783535"
       x="90.990852"
       y="91.141266" />
    <rect
       style="fill:#ffffff;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.27966458;stroke-miterlimit:0.30000001;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0;image-rendering:auto"
       id="rect819"
       width="80.020325"
       height="41.94614"
       x="20.005081"
       y="143.4126">
      <title
         id="title842">logo</title>
    </rect>
    <rect
       style="fill:#ffffff;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:0.27966458;stroke-miterlimit:0.30000001;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-dashoffset:0"
       id="rect821"
       width="108.41463"
       height="43.236786"
       x="70.985771"
       y="203.42784" />
  </g>
</svg>

Rendered in Inkscape

And the PDF:

One issue is that widths for paragraphs that are split over two frames are wrong. I am not sure how to fix that.