Hi I am a new Inkscape user. I am learning this application because I recommended it to a client that is running Windows 2000 and did not want to buy Illustrator. I figured this was a great alternative. So far it seems great but we are both learning as we go and I have a few questions and issues I hope someone can help out with.

1. Box in middle. I notice a square that appears in the middle of a new document. I assume that the project needs to stay within these borders? When I open the SVG in Illustrator, AI only seems to see that section of the file. Am I correct in understanding that the project must stay withing these borders to ensure compatibility with other applications?

2. Document size and performance - My client started using inkscape and creating his projects way larger then the borders and with a lot of layers and detail/effects. He is having performance issues and Inkscape goes "not responding" when trying to save as EPS file. I assumed this was due to the size of the images so I scaled the drawing down to a fraction of the border size and Inkscape still goes to "not responding" when trying to save as EPS. I notice task manager memory usage when saving goes from about 146MB to 200MB+. Anyone know what I am doing wrong and why the program has such a hard time saving as EPS?

*My system is Windows 7 32bit, Intel Dual core 2.6Ghz, 4GB RAM and never seems to struggle with anything else. I have the same problem on my Windows 7 laptop and my clients Windows 2000 desktop.

3. Lossless file types - The project I am working on has a blur lighting effect that blend different color lights togather and when I save as PNG or open SVG in AI that effect gets lost. I cannot seem to find any other formats to save as that I can successfully open in another program keeping all of the effect and quality in tact. I would try EPS but as I said abobe the program crashes when I try. What are the best formats I should save as that I can work with in other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Final Cut?

I know that is a lot of questions but they have been building up and all of the research I have done have not given me the answers I am looking for. Thanks all.

cyberdyne wrote: I am learning this application because I recommended it to a client that is running Windows 2000 and did not want to buy Illustrator.

Recommending something you've never used is stupid and unprofessional (he says, while his colleague struggles to make a consultant's recommended application work, the same consultant having failed so to do).

1. Box in middle. I notice a square that appears in the middle of a new document. I assume that the project needs to stay within these borders? When I open the SVG in Illustrator, AI only seems to see that section of the file. Am I correct in understanding that the project must stay withing these borders to ensure compatibility with other applications?

That's the page-size boundary. Inkscape doesn't care whether your image falls within it or not, but other applications (firefox for example, or when exporting a "page", or when printing) will only show what's within that boundary. I'd be surprised that AI cares (are you in a mode that only shows the output page?), but I don't use it myself.

2. Document size and performance - My client started using inkscape and creating his projects way larger then the borders and with a lot of layers and detail/effects. He is having performance issues and Inkscape goes "not responding" when trying to save as EPS file. I assumed this was due to the size of the images so I scaled the drawing down to a fraction of the border size and Inkscape still goes to "not responding" when trying to save as EPS. I notice task manager memory usage when saving goes from about 146MB to 200MB+. Anyone know what I am doing wrong and why the program has such a hard time saving as EPS?

Scaling's basically irrelevant, as both SVG and EPS have lossless scaling. It's the amount of detail (and those blurs and blends you mention later) that cause the issue.

3. Lossless file types - What are the best formats I should save as that I can work with in other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Final Cut?

You're most likely best working entirely with either Inkscape or Illustrator for all the vector work, and exporting that as a png of appropriate resolution to use within Photoshop or whatever. It would be useful if Photoshop or Gimp allowed an SVG layer (or something) that could be manipulated by your preferred vector tool, but they (AFAIK) don't

"Recommending something you've never used is stupid and unprofessional (he says, while his colleague struggles to make a consultant's recommended application work, the same consultant having failed so to do)."

Well it wasn't a recommendation as in "hey this program is great, you should use this". It was more of a situation where he didn't want to pay for AI but needed a program that could do vector graphics. So I offered to look around for a program that could do this and be compatible with Windows 2000 (which the latest AI is not). A google search later he was using Inkscape.

"Scaling's basically irrelevant, as both SVG and EPS have lossless scaling. It's the amount of detail (and those blurs and blends you mention later) that cause the issue. "

I understand the losssless scaling part but the image doesn't appear to be very complicated. Ive seen some screen shots on Inkscapes on the homepage that look stunning in the detail and realism. This image I am working with is a simple cartoon with a handful of simple colors. The only thing that appears to be complicated is the blur effect on the lights but its just that one effect. Also is there a way to save this image as another format that keeps the blur effect?

Here is an example of the SVG in Inkscape. This is about 20% of the drawing.


Here is an example of the PNG I saved, notice the blur effect of the lights got lost:


The reason we need to be able to save into a different format while keeping the quality at the highest possible level is because we are doing a stop motion type cartoon. We move the drawing slightly and then save as over and over creating dozens of images that will be used in Final Cut to animate the snap shots into a cartoon. PNG seems to loose the blur so hopefully I am just missing an option somewhere or perhaps if I can get the file to save as EPS without the program crashing we would be in good shape.

hi Cyberdine! I'm not the tech whiz here but I wonder if you are trying to save as PNG and thereby losing your filter effects?
Please use export bitmap from the file menu to save as PNG to export your illustration with all effects intact. Note the options on the top of the dialog box and the resolution for better export. Hope this solves your prob.
Installing ghostscript will let you save as eps but I don't think the eps definition includes blur. Likewise SVG opened in some other program like AI will not keep those attributes that start with sodipodi or inkscape in the xml unless AI installs an Inkscape SVG import plugin (unlikely, but could happen )

Ah, cheapskate clients; know about them, too.

druban's advice is correct; always save as svg, and export to png. The performance issues were in the conversion process, so that should avoid the problem.

I'll add that it's worth taking the time to understand the page boundary and export options at an early stage so as to avoid wasting time later. Setting your page size according to the output size you want, to get the drawing correctly proportioned. Then set correct detail at export time.
E.g. you want your picture to be 10x5, set your page to that as you start. When you export to png, setting 300 dpi gets you a 10x5 image when printed; 96dpi a 10x5 image on a screen, and so on.

Very good information, thank you so much. I was able to get the PNG exported and it look much better. As for ghostscript, I will research it a little bit and see if it will work for me. Thanks again for the responses.

2 cyberdyne (Lossless file types) There are also some third party solutions, which allows to avoid SVG conversions. For Adobe Photoshop & Photoshop Elements I found "SVG Kit for Adobe Creative suite" at http://svg.scand.com It allows to import SVG images to Photoshop (converting it to PSD). Seems it works well, so you may also give it a try.