I am using the Inkscape for production of the scientific posters. Usually, I used the native dimension of the sheet (e.g. A0, A1) but it produce a lot of trouble and drain the hardware resources. Thus, I would like to prepare the svg on A4 sheet and export it to pdf of A1 or A0 dimensions for the plotter. Is it possible?
I am working on Windows 10 and 1.0 (4035a4fb49, 2020-05-01) Inkscape version.
I don't think you can do just inside Inkscape. The dimensions you enter are supposed to be the dimensions you want. So, assuming the plotter software can't simply scale up the A4 PDF, the solution will probably be a third-party PDF tool.
Happily, that's a common need for lots of people. Personally, I like PDF Arranger, which should work on Windows. You can use it to open a PDF, choose pages from it, and then edit their page format. This enables you to scale the pages by a percentage as well as manually enter exact millimeters. Put in the right numbers and you can turn an A4 into some other Ax. Try to scale up by an even number of sizes (e.g. A4 to A2 or A0), since going up by an odd number (e.g. A4 to A3 or A1) will involve the square root of two, which is irrational and will introduce rounding errors.
I do have another way to offer you, which is to manually edit the SVG in a text editor. In my experiment, this worked on both Inkscape's native SVG files and the simpler, plain SVG files it can export for the web. The beginning of the SVG file will look something like this:
By altering the width and height, I was able to change the dimensions of the SVG. This might work for you, but it also might not. This is because this doesn't actually change the units of the SVG. The viewBox stays the same, and all the shapes in the SVG stay in same place. So your plotter's software might not pick this up.
Sorry if my question seems stupid 🙁: what drains resources ?
- For vector graphics, I used to think scale was not a problem. I tried to design two .svg files with simple shapes : one with A4 format, and another with A0, scaling the shapes by 4. The weight of the two files stays the same, whatever the dimensions of the svg.
- Filters may drain ressources (we can turn them off).
- If your poster has bitmaps. The problem of the resolution remains the same with A4 or A0: the poster is designed to be printed in A0.
@David_CAU Not OP, and not savvy about Inkscape's internals, but could it be the size of the pixel buffers Inkscape uses to display the SVG on screen? Maybe OP is running out of memory?
@dzon_doe Does Inkscape crash for you when you're using A1 or A0, perhaps when you zoom in?
@DanielFlaum Thank you, I will check your solution.
@David_CAU I faced a lot of hardware drain effects such as freezing of the screen, lagging during shape drawing, random and frequent crash (especially when zooming). It is also connected with the fact that a lot of space is occupied by a text. BTW A0 = 16·A4
Beginners' Questions Dimension of a file
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Hi,
I am using the Inkscape for production of the scientific posters. Usually, I used the native dimension of the sheet (e.g. A0, A1) but it produce a lot of trouble and drain the hardware resources. Thus, I would like to prepare the svg on A4 sheet and export it to pdf of A1 or A0 dimensions for the plotter. Is it possible?
I am working on Windows 10 and 1.0 (4035a4fb49, 2020-05-01) Inkscape version.
Kind regards,
dzon_doe
PDF readers should be able to scale to fit large stock.
I'd make a simple test.
I don't think you can do just inside Inkscape. The dimensions you enter are supposed to be the dimensions you want. So, assuming the plotter software can't simply scale up the A4 PDF, the solution will probably be a third-party PDF tool.
Happily, that's a common need for lots of people. Personally, I like PDF Arranger, which should work on Windows. You can use it to open a PDF, choose pages from it, and then edit their page format. This enables you to scale the pages by a percentage as well as manually enter exact millimeters. Put in the right numbers and you can turn an A4 into some other Ax. Try to scale up by an even number of sizes (e.g. A4 to A2 or A0), since going up by an odd number (e.g. A4 to A3 or A1) will involve the square root of two, which is irrational and will introduce rounding errors.
Ok, so change of the pdf’s dimension may be problematic. Maybe I should process the svg? Maybe there is function as scale up?
I do have another way to offer you, which is to manually edit the SVG in a text editor. In my experiment, this worked on both Inkscape's native SVG files and the simpler, plain SVG files it can export for the web. The beginning of the SVG file will look something like this:
By altering the width and height, I was able to change the dimensions of the SVG. This might work for you, but it also might not. This is because this doesn't actually change the units of the SVG. The viewBox stays the same, and all the shapes in the SVG stay in same place. So your plotter's software might not pick this up.
Sorry if my question seems stupid 🙁: what drains resources ?
- For vector graphics, I used to think scale was not a problem. I tried to design two .svg files with simple shapes : one with A4 format, and another with A0, scaling the shapes by 4. The weight of the two files stays the same, whatever the dimensions of the svg.
- Filters may drain ressources (we can turn them off).
- If your poster has bitmaps. The problem of the resolution remains the same with A4 or A0: the poster is designed to be printed in A0.
🤔I don't see...
@David_CAU Not OP, and not savvy about Inkscape's internals, but could it be the size of the pixel buffers Inkscape uses to display the SVG on screen? Maybe OP is running out of memory?
@dzon_doe Does Inkscape crash for you when you're using A1 or A0, perhaps when you zoom in?
Some useful hints from Mark to reduce filter associated load on PC resources : https://fullcirclemagazine.org/magazines/issue-113/
@DanielFlaum Thank you, I will check your solution.
@David_CAU I faced a lot of hardware drain effects such as freezing of the screen, lagging during shape drawing, random and frequent crash (especially when zooming). It is also connected with the fact that a lot of space is occupied by a text. BTW A0 = 16·A4