request: convert flowtext to svg 1.1 fallback on save as plain svg

Inkscape is generating SVG1.1 non-compliant files when saving as plain-svg.

For some rendering engines, this is causing significant rendering issues. Recent versions of engines seem to have solves the major issues. Engines include libRSVG, batik-1.6, firefox 1.5, gqview

In any case, Inkscape should remove flowed text and convert it to compliant SVG when exporting plain-svg.

From the original comments:

Good to hear this bug is confirmed once again. Would really like the option to save to an SVG option in which flowtext is converted automatically so the svg can be viewed in Firefox, Chrome, Illustrator and so on. A save as option to be added to the save options so to speak.

A proper solution for this bug would be to simple remove all flowed text (which function already Inkscape has) on saving as "Plain SVG". There is no reason anymore to keep this "flowed text" feature on not proprietary SVG and bother such much people (for example all libRSVG user as on Wikimedia).

PS: libRSVG got a fix (after 10 years of bother) to not display black rectangles for "unknown" elements anymore.

added Inkscape label

Unsure if this should be a preference or always occur.

It'll be less of an issue if we default to SVG2 text, but it'll still be there.

Solutions noted in the bug report:

Change the version from 1.1 to 1.2 on save to plain-svg if text is present (might not be enough for average users)
Convert the text on save as plain-svg (objections from developers in bug report)
Give an option to convert the text on save as plain-svg (unobjectionable, but more work than 2)
In 2007: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/167335/comments/15

Flowed text (flowRoot and friends) must be moved to inkscape namespace, placed into a foreignObject, and added a sibling svg:text which gives an automatically updated text equivalent. All this is placed into svg:switch, the way Adobe Illustrator does with its text. (I can share a sample.)

Post-LGM 2014 note: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/167335/comments/34

Converting the flowtext representation to the form proposed for SVG 2 text would give us SVG 1.1-compliant fallback for free. Basically, would have width, height and shape-inside attributes determining the flowregion, and tspans would have x/y attributes determining the glyph placement. In an SVG 1.1 compliant renderer, the x/y attributes would be used. In an SVG 2 renderer, the flowregion attributes would be used to compute the placement of text.

Edit: added more stuff

changed title from flowed text has no SVG 1.1-compliant fallback to request: convert flowtext to svg 1.1 fallback on save as plain svg

added feature request label

mentioned in issue #1802 (closed)

Upvoting this request. It's strange that a nonstandard SVG element would be exported in a plain SVG file, and it's causing problems for our document pipeline (using asciidoctor-pdf and prawn-svg) since it does not recognize or deal with this tag aside from raising a warning and ignoring it. I wish I knew how to visually identify which element in the GUI view corresponds to the offending tag but I'm pretty much a newb at Inkscape.

mentioned in issue #1797

I am having the same issue.

One (bad) workaround is to open the SVG in LibreOffice Draw, redo the text in Draw, and then export from Draw the SVG file.

a simpler in-inkscape workaround would be to select all flowtext (or just all objects) and select Text > Convert To Text. The equivalent verb in CLI for 0.92.x is ObjectFlowtextToText

I think this bug can be fixed by converting SVG 1.2 fow text to SVG 2.0 flow text and let the svg exporter do the hard work of creating the SVG 1.1 fallback. (Trust me, having fixed bugs in this code, it's not something you want to re-write just for plain svg export).

@Tavmjong What do you think about having this in 1.1 as the default?

Nathan's suggested work-around should do the trick. I believe that it basically calls the same code that is used to generate the 2.0 fallback. We could offer a preference for converting SVG 1.2 text to SVG 1.1 text when saving as plain SVG (flowRoot and kin are proper SVG... it's SVG 1.2 which very few renderers implemented). Eventually, this will be a moot point when we disable generating SVG 1.2 flowed text and automatically convert existing SVG 1.2 flowed text to SVG 2.

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request: convert flowtext to svg 1.1 fallback on save as plain svg

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