About

A Python package for including SVG graphics in LaTeX via Inkscape. The package includes a script that converts:

• SVG to PDF and LaTeX text, with the text overlaid in LaTeX over the graphics as PDF. The package first separates text from graphics, and then uses Inkscape to convert the SVG graphics to a PDF. The text is stored in a LaTeX file with extension .pdf_tex.

• SVG to PDF, with the text included in the PDF. The package uses Inkscape to convert the entire SVG to a PDF.

SVGLaTeX converts the SVG only if the PDF file is older than the SVG source.

Requirements

• Inkscape: needs to be installed and the executable inkscape in the environment variable $PATH.

  On Linux you can install inkscape using the operating system's package manager, for example apt install inkscape on Debian.

  On macOS you can create a symbolic link to inkscape and inkscape-bin as follows:

  ln -s $HOME/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/bin/inkscape $HOME/bin/inkscape
  ln -s $HOME/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/bin/inkscape-bin $HOME/bin/inkscape-bin

  This assumes that the file Inkscape.app is installed in the directory /$HOME/Applications/. The environment variable $HOME is described here.

Installation

From the Python Package Index (PyPI) using the package installer pip:

pip install svglatex

The Python package installs a script named svglatex as entry point. This script can be invoked from the command line, for example:

svglatex -h

Usage

For including SVG files in a LaTeX document, install the Python package svglatex and the LaTeX style svglatex.sty, which includes the LaTeX commands \includesvg and \includesvgpdf. The style file svglatex.sty can be:

• placed in the directory $HOME/texmf/tex/latex/local/, and then invoking texhash $HOME/texmf registers the style with LaTeX. You can find the appropriate location with kpsewhich -var-value=TEXMFHOME, as discussed here. To confirm the LaTeX package installation invoke kpsewhich svglatex.sty Alternatively,

• placed in the LaTeX document directory, or

• the contents of svglatex.sty can be copied to the LaTeX document's preamble.

For convenience, the file svglatex.sty is in the directory tests/. Examples of usage are in the test files tests/*.tex. See svglatex.sty for documentation, in particular it needs calling LaTeX with --shell-escape.

Tests

See the file tests/README.md.

License

BSD-3, see file LICENSE.