I have recently installed Inkscape with the sole purpose that it can output as a .dxf so I can use the CNC at work to cutout my designs. However when I try to save I get the following error.

The fantastic lxml wrapper for libxml2 is required by inkex.py and therefore this extension. Please download and install the latest version from http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/lxml/, or install it through your package manager by a command like: sudo apt-get install python-lxml

Now before posting on here, I did as was suggested and research to see if there was a fix, or mention of this problem, and I did find reference to this exact problem, however the final post was that it was a known bug, and don't try to fix it, that the new release of inkscape will address it. The only problem is that post was in 2010, and i have only just installed inkscape so one would assume i do have the most up-to-date version.

My mac is using OS X v10.7.4 and inkscape 0.48

As the other person with this problem mentioned, i too have followed the direction of trying to download a package to solve this problem. I downloaded it okay, but am not sure what to do with the files from here? I have never used an open source program before and (obviously) not familiar with some of the more technical stuff, and would just ask if anyone may be able to offer any advice, if there has been any progress with this issue in recent times. I appreciate the help and apologise in advance for maybe not following correct procedure within the forum by posting here, but i am just struggling to make heads or tails of anything.

Love the program so far, seems very comprehensive, and am slowly figuring things out, but this one problem is stopping me from doing the sole thing I got it for.......

Regards

Welcome to InkscapeForum!
I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, but we've had a few messages about this recently. If you search the forum for "fantastic lxml wrapper" you''ll probably find them

davidlinda wrote:Now before posting on here, I did as was suggested and research to see if there was a fix, or mention of this problem, and I did find reference to this exact problem, however the final post was that it was a known bug, and don't try to fix it, that the new release of inkscape will address it. The only problem is that post was in 2010, and i have only just installed inkscape so one would assume i do have the most up-to-date version.

My mac is using OS X v10.7.4 and inkscape 0.48

Too bad you did not provide the link to the page you retrieved this information from. I guess that you looked at an outdated blog entry somewhere, referring to the older bug report about extensions initially failing on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard? The one about extensions failing on OS X 10.7 Lion is a separate, newer issue - certainly not from 2010: at that time, OS X Lion (Release date: July 20, 2011) didn't exist yet.

davidlinda wrote:As the other person with this problem mentioned, i too have followed the direction of trying to download a package to solve this problem. I downloaded it okay, but am not sure what to do with the files from here? I have never used an open source program before and (obviously) not familiar with some of the more technical stuff, and would just ask if anyone may be able to offer any advice, if there has been any progress with this issue in recent times. I appreciate the help and apologise in advance for maybe not following correct procedure within the forum by posting here, but i am just struggling to make heads or tails of anything.

Unless you provide actual information about what steps you already tried, which packages you downloaded (and installed?), there is nothing I could offer as advice about your specific situation.

About the current state of Inkscape on OS X Lion:
The latest official package of Inkscape for Mac OS X is still Inkscape 0.48.2 [1], and is affected by this known issue that python-based extensions don't work on OS X Lion out-of-the-box. Unfortunately, there are no newer packages available yet (the cause is known, as well as a solution).

See also this earlier comment Re: Using Extension "Restack" on Mac OSX 10.7 (Lion) for current information. It's about the same issue (Inkscape uses a python-based extension to export to DXF).

[1] If you don't remember which version of Inkscape you downloaded and installed, see Inkscape menu 'Help > About Inkscape' for the details.

Thanks guys for reply, and apologies for being to vague.

I downloaded my version of inkscape (0.48.2) from here
http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en
and clicked on this download: Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard — Universal .dmg (requires Apple's X11/Xquartz 2.3.4 or higher)

The package i downloaded i got from here
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/lxml/
And selected what I thought would be the most up-to-date package which was:
lxml 2.3.4 Powerful and Pythonic XML processing library combining libxml2/libxslt with the ElementTree API.

This downloaded a folder, and I have no idea how to install it, I am also a new mac user too........
with applications i know you drag the program into applications and that installs it, but with a folder, i am not sure how to make sure they are in the correct location.

I will have another look through the forums but i did spend about 4 hours yesterday looking through and most of the posts about it were just people saying they had the problem, but couldn't really find a solution. Then again maybe it did, but i just don't understand it.....

Thanks again for your patience.


PS. Thanks a bunch SUV. I followed your series of links and they worked perfectly! Well i haven't been able to test the file at work, but i no longer get the error occurring when i save.
I really do appreciate the help offered here, to a complete novice like me. I don't have the right to demand help, and you don't have the responsibility to offer help.
Incase i haven;t made it clear THANKS!!

To any others with the same problem who like me couldn't make heads or tails of what to do go HERE: https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/ ... #comment-4

and start with post #5.

Thanks again SUV.