Wikipedia:SVG help
SVG help Scalable Vector Graphics is a commonly used file format for providing a geometrical description of an image using basic objects such as labels, circles, lines, curves and polygons. An image can be reduced or enlarged to an arbitrary size, and will not suffer image data loss, nor will it become pixelated. SVG makes an excellent format for artwork, diagrams and drawings. SVG images are defined in XML text files. This means that they can be searched, indexed, scripted and, compressed. Since they are XML files, SVG images can be edited with any text editor, but SVG-based drawing programs are also available. However, the rendering engine used by wiki is not perfect, and may cause the image to be shown incorrectly, or differently from how it is displayed in your vector editor of choice. This page enables authors experiencing problems with SVG graphics to obtain some help in getting their images into wiki the way they intend. |
Things we can help with Understanding SVG
Using SVG appropriately
What you see is not what you get
Something new
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Common problems[edit]Testing for problems[edit]The following SVG checkers may help you to detect SVG problems before you upload: flowRoot does not appear[edit]If black box appear, read c:User:JoKalliauer/RepairFlowRoot how to solve this issue, but do not remove those objects since they might contain text. The workarounds that one can employ are either not to use flowed text (by using the text tool without creating a text field), or convert the text to normal text (by Text-editor or sed-comand, or with Inkscape-GUI or with a Inkscape-batch), but to stroke the text using "object to path", since path-text is not recomended and increases file-size. font-family issues[edit]Due to copyright restrictions, MediaWiki cannot use proprietary fonts that are commonly found on several proprietary operating systems. Fonts such as Geneva require licensing fees to distribute. rsvg will not be able to locate such fonts, and the text will fail to appear in the rendered image. There are three solutions to this issue:
For ease of subsequent editing and significantly smaller file sizes, substituting the font with an available font is recommended. Many common fonts have non-proprietary alternatives that are similar in typographical style, resulting in minimal disruption to existing images during substitution. For a list of fonts available in Wikipedia, see available fonts on Meta. Wikimedia has default fonts, and will use Liberation Serif for Times New Roman and Liberation Sans for Arial. For further fallbacks see c:Help:SVG#fallback. Fonts that are available on Wikimedia servers may or may not be available on a visitor's machine. If the placement or appearance of text in the image is important and there is uncertainty about which fonts are installed on a visitor's machine, then converting text into path information may be necessary. bad letter-alignment on small font-size[edit]Librsvg calculates the letter-distances inaccurantly for font-sizes of 20px and below. For a text like <svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<text x="20" y="30" font-size="5px">exampletext</text>
</svg>
you can replace it with: <svg viewBox="0 0 1000 1000" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<text x="200" y="300" font-size="50px">exampletext</text>
</svg>
or with <svg viewBox="0 0 100 100" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<g transform="scale(0.1)"><text x="200" y="300" font-size="50px">exampletext</text></g>
</svg>
Missing embedded JPEG images[edit]When a raster graphic is embedded in an SVG it is encoded into base64 data. That data is then assigned a MIME type in the <image> element. In the case of an embedded JPEG, the MIME type is "image/jpeg". Older versions of Inkscape (and possibly other editors) assigned the MIME type "image/jpg". While Inkscape and most web browsers will display such an SVG image just fine, the MediaWiki software that rasterizes the SVG file will have trouble with it. Not recognizing the MIME type "image/jpg" there will simply be an empty space where the image is supposed to be. The fix is to open the SVG file in a text editor, find the <image> element, locate "image/jpg", change it to "image/jpeg" and re-save. At right is an example of this problem. The Commons SVG Checker looks for this problem; see Commons:Commons:Commons SVG Checker/KnownBugs#Checks for details. Though Web browsers cope with image tags without width and height specified, librsvg ignores such images. arc flags[edit]If circle-segmentes are distorted it is often due to reduced spaces between arc-to-flags, see phab:T217990 for details. Further issues[edit]Further issues can be found at c:Librsvg_bugs or at Commons:Commons:Commons SVG Checker/KnownBugs, and examples can be found at c:Category:Pictures_demonstrating_a_librsvg_bug. However most issues (for files <1MB) can be fixed using https://svgworkaroundbot.toolforge.org/ (enable "run svgcleaner" and enable "run scour" before clicking convert), for a more detailed list check c:User:SVGWorkaroundBot. Rendering files[edit]MediaWiki (the software from which Wikipedia is run) uses the librsvg-library to rasterize all of its svg files. The version of the rsvg program that is installed on wiki does not always correctly raster the Inkscape or OpenOffice.org SVG files, and does not recognize some formats in text-editor SVG files. The file manager GNOME Files or c:Commons:Commons_SVG_Checker relies on librsvg, so it can be used to check the quality before a SVG is uploaded. Rendering Inkscape files[edit]There is a simple work-around for the scarcities of librsvg. The operation "Stroke to Path", to be found under Menu>Path in Inkscape or via Ctrl+Alt+C, can be applied to all of the objects that are not rendered correctly. To keep the SVGs editable, this should only be done to the files intended for upload, and these files can be deleted afterwards. As of February 2014, the objects that must be modified to render correctly by librsvg include:
Rendering OpenOffice.org SVG files[edit]OpenOffice.org SVG files may require manual modification before being uploaded to Wikipedia. To achieve this:
NB: Vector graphics line widths may also need to be set explicitly in OpenOffice.org Draw. SVG code replacement guide (executing replace all using Nedit regular expressions)[edit]
This SVG export procedure has been tested using OO 2.3.0 and OO 3.2.1 with a simple .odg candidate. Rendering text-editor SVG files[edit]SVG files created from scratch in a text editor may make use of any valid SVG syntax, so long as your browser supports the given version of the SVG specification. On Wikipedia however, SVGs are interpreted by the librsvg-library to create PNG previews at different image sizes. That library only recognizes a subset of all valid SVG syntax, and may render your SVG without many features. In order to bypass these deficiencies in the library, there are certain parameters that need to be formatted in specific ways or be assigned a workaround value in order for librsvg to accurately render views of your SVG file. <mask> parameter maskUnits="userSpaceOnUse"[edit]The librsvg-library does not interpret the value of parameter stroke-dasharray[edit]The librsvg-library does not accept a Use xlink:href=, not href= alone, in
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I've uploaded .xlsx (Microsoft Excel) spreadsheets that automatically generate XML code for charts in SVG format.
You simply paste your X-Y data into the spreadsheet, and specify image dimensions, number of grid lines, font sizes, etc. The spreadsheet instantly and automatically generates a column of XML code that you simply copy and paste into a text editor and save as an ".svg" file. It produces lean SVG code, avoiding the "extra stuff" that Inkscape inserts, and should save you time.
Feedback and suggestions on my talk page are welcome. RCraig09 (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
- Warming stripes (download v3.8) produces XML code for applications of Ed Hawkins' warming stripes graphics. User chooses vertical or horizontal stripes; normal or reverse data ordering; or from a variety of geometric shapes (updated 3 June 2021).
- Click here to see examples of warming stripes embedded in different shapes.
- Warming stripes bar chart (download v1.0) Creates a bar chart whose individual bars/columns are coloured according to Dr. Hawkins' warming stripes colour scheme. Alternate option: choose one colour for ascending bars and another colour for descending bars. One dataset only (updated 27 Jan 2022).
- Line charts (download v2.2)— Accepts up to five datasets for LINE charts (example at right) (updated 25 Jan 2022).
- Vertical bar charts (column charts) (download v1.1)— Accepts up to six datasets for VERTICAL BAR CHARTS (COLUMN CHARTS)—toggle between clustered and stacked charts; user can adjust "Yfloor"—the Y level (usually=0) from which columns rise or fall; user chooses to keep or ignore negative input values (example at right) (updated 25 Jan 2022).
- Horizontal bar charts (download v1.0)— Accepts up to six datasets for HORIZONTAL BAR CHARTS—toggle between clustered and stacked charts; user can adjust "Yfloor"—the value (usually=0) from which bars extend; user chooses to keep or ignore negative input values (updated 27 Jan 2022).
- Scatter plots (download v1.0)— Accepts up to five datasets for SCATTER PLOTS (updated 25 Jan 2022).
- Pie charts (download v1.0)— Accepts a series of up to 36 items for PIE CHARTS (updated 26 Jan 2022).
See examples in Category:SVG diagrams created with spreadsheet.
Assistance[edit]
If you have a tricky SVG file with a problem not described, or can't quite figure out what the previous section was talking about, you can simply ask for assistance by posting a quick note hereafter that outlines the problem, as well as providing links to the files that are exhibiting these problems. Don't forget to sign your name with four tilde symbols (~~~~) and an editor will attempt to reply here to help!
When you are happy that a request has been fulfilled, just leave a note so that the request can be archived later, as needed.
An alternative source of help is Commons:Graphics village pump.
Current requests[edit]
Blackened out PNG preview, but SVG looks normal[edit]
Hi there. I'm having some trouble with an SVG file of New Jersey's flag in the Eurovision heart logo. The coat of arms is completely covered in black in the PNG preview, but when I click on it to see the SVG file, it appears fine.
The program I used to create this SVG image was Inkscape. Could someone be able to help me figure out what's wrong? Thanks.
- ChocoMingo (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
- @ChocoMingo: Please check https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Commons_SVG_Checker?withJS=MediaWiki:CommonsSvgChecker.js&checkSVG=File%3AEuroNueva_Jersey.svg and click on "Execute SVG check" (the first one). This will guide you to phab:T68672. However the issue is not phab:T68672, but similar. You need to put
<style type="text/css" id="style8667">...</style>
at the beginning of the document, see phab:T304209. — Johannes Kalliauer - contrib. 20:55, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
How can I see that an SVG image update has been changed?[edit]
Good morning, I wanted to ask if it is possible to know what has been changed from an SVG update, either on Wikipedia or by programs like Notepad++. Thank you! --KajenCAT (talk) 12:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- @KajenCAT: As an example: I take File:Instant_insanity_nets.svg from #Weird_rendering_of_pattern
- Download both versions:
wget https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/1/12/20220314025255%21Instant_insanity_nets.svg
wget https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Instant_insanity_nets.svg
- Open both in Notepad++ (and for convenience close all other opened files)
- Install Compare-Plugin, see https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/notepad-compare-two-files-plugin/
- Notepad++ >
Plugins
>Compare
>Compare
- Something similar to https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/File:Screenshot_from_2022-03-26_13-14-31.png should appear (I’m currently on Linux, therefore I use
vimdiff
instead of notepad++, so the interface is more like https://www.thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/compare-two-files-in-notepad.png )
- Download both versions:
- — Johannes Kalliauer - contrib. 12:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you, @JoKalliauer:! Now I see the diff. I'm updating the Catalan version of File:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.svg and and I have already translated and transcribed most of the image (legend, toponyms, ...) to Catalan. I want to do it every few days to keep it updated, but I have to do it all over again from zero. Although I have almost automated this process, I was wondering if it would be possible to simply copy the new changes from the old file to the new file and overwrite them to my translated file, just to speed up the process.
- Although this plugin is very useful (and it can help me in small changes), I don't see how I can do this. I searched it on internet, but I didn't understand it very well, as my knowledge in this field is very basic. KajenCAT (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- An alternative method without installing any additional software is to use Rillke's SVGedit: after addingto Special:MyPage/common.js, save the previous version as an SVG file, click Edit SVG on the file page on Commons, Browse for the saved file, and click Diff. Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 22:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
if (mw.config.get('wgNamespaceNumber') === 6 && /SVG/i.test(mw.config.get('wgTitle').slice(-3))) // SVGedit on SVG files only importScript('User:Rillke/SVGedit.js');
- Hi @Cmglee:, thank you very much! However, I don't see how I could copy the change of this diff to my version language. In other words, how can I overwrite the modifications in another file without modifying what has not been touched? Regards, KajenCAT (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- Hi KajenCAT, I don't think SVGedit can do that. It sounds like you wish to do a three-way merge. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/572237/whats-the-best-three-way-merge-tool links to some tools that can do that ‐ sadly, I couldn't find a free online tool. The alternative is to generate a patch and apply it to the other file. http://tools.bartlweb.net/diff claims to do this but I haven't tried it out. Hope that helps, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 00:11, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
- Hi @Cmglee:, thank you very much! However, I don't see how I could copy the change of this diff to my version language. In other words, how can I overwrite the modifications in another file without modifying what has not been touched? Regards, KajenCAT (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
- An alternative method without installing any additional software is to use Rillke's SVGedit: after adding