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
| ||||||
Common problemsTesting for problemsThe following SVG checkers may help you to detect SVG problems before you upload: flowRoot does not appearIf 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 issuesDue 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-sizeLibrsvg 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 imagesWhen 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 flagsIf circle-segmentes are distorted it is often due to reduced spaces between arc-to-flags, see phab:T217990 for details. Further issuesFurther 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 filesMediaWiki (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 filesThere 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 filesOpenOffice.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)
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 filesSVG 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"The librsvg-library does not interpret the value of parameter stroke-dasharrayThe librsvg-library does not accept a Use xlink:href=, not href= alone, in
|
I've uploaded .xlsx (Microsoft Excel) spreadsheets that automatically generate XML code for charts in SVG format.
You simply paste or enter your 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. The spreadsheets produce lean SVG code, avoiding the "extra stuff" that Inkscape inserts. They should save you time in creating SVG charts.
Feedback and suggestions on my talk page are welcome. RCraig09 (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
- Warming stripes — Accepts a single dataset and converts to SVG code portraying Ed Hawkins' warming stripes graphics. User chooses vertical or horizontal stripes; normal or reverse data ordering; or from a variety of geometric shapes (updated 4 June 2021). . . . . Click here to see examples of warming stripes embedded in different shapes.
- Warming stripes bar chart — Accepts a single dataset and creates a conventional 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. (updated 27 Jan 2022)
- Line charts — Accepts up to five datasets. (updated 25 Jan 2022)
- Vertical bar charts (column charts) — Accepts up to six datasets. 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. (updated 14 May 2022)
- Horizontal bar charts — Accepts up to six datasets. 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 — Accepts up to five datasets. (updated 25 Jan 2022)
- Pie charts — Accepts a single dataset of up to 36 items. (updated 7 Oct 2022)
Assistance
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
Create a new request
jpg to svg
Is there a wiki tool to convert logo like this with transparent background. Thank you. commons:File:MCC-LOGO.jpg Neurofreak (talk) 19:45, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
- I don't know of a tool, but you could request a human create an SVG at commons:Commons:Graphic_Lab/Illustration_workshop. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:35, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
- Inkscape has a tool to trace bitmaps, though the quality of the logo depends on its complexity and the parameters you choose. As your logo has a single colour and details are not too fine, it should work reasonably well. If you need help, please ask at the commons:Commons:Graphic_Lab/Illustration_workshop, as RCraig09 recommended. Good luck, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 02:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for the response. Neurofreak (talk) 18:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Incorrect rendering of SVG circles using "stroke-dasharray" attribute (vs. "Arc" specification)
This image uses the stroke-dasharray attribute on a circle to form "wedges" for use in pie charts. This "test image" renders perfectly when directly read by my Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, and no checker reported any SVG structural errors (w3.org, Commons SVG checker, and toolforge svg check).
The file renders correctly when I click on the main image on the file description page and the image fills the screen, but renders incorrectly on the Wikimedia file description page itself, on the Toolforge checker, and on en.Wikipedia. The two "25%" wedges in the left graphic should abut perfectly without a gap and without the left edges "tilting", and the right graphic's wedge shows an anomaly at the vertex. In all cases, there appears to be a "ghost" wedge that is slightly rotated from each original wedge.
Does anyone know what the problem is?
(FYI: A background explanation is provided in the sources linked on the file page, and a copy of the SVG code is embedded in image itself.)
Thanks for any insights you can provide. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:47, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
- @RCraig09: That's an ingenious way of drawing circular sectors. The bug seems to be a combination of anti-aliasing and rounding error. Though the length of the dash is specified to many decimal places (157.0796326794897), rsvg doesn't exactly render it to that length, so the edge isn't exactly rectilinear. Perhaps the conventional way is still preferable:
<path d="M 0,0 H 200 A 200,200 0 0 0 0,-200" fill="black" stroke="none"/>
Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 22:57, 3 October 2022 (UTC)- @Cmglee: Thanks for investigating. That's what I was afraid of. :-\ I'm not as familiar with the Arc function, and I was planning on making a generalized spreadsheet that automatically generates SVG code for pie charts. It will be a challenge to generalize wedges from 1 through 359 degrees! —RCraig09 (talk) 23:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
- In case anyone is interested, below is code for making a pie chart using SVG's Arc function. Each wedge starts out as a vertical line leading up from the origin, and traverses an arc clockwise per pie chart standards. Arcs are then rotated to be "stacked" in succession around the circle. The large arc flag is 1 only if a particular arc is >180 degrees. The destination coordinates are sin θ,–cos θ. The following code would be placed inside a group
<g transform="translate(x,y)">
to locate it appropriately.Thanks for the help, cmglee. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2022 (UTC)<path transform="rotate(0)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 1 1 -283.755673,97.379248 z" fill="blue"/> <path transform="rotate(251.058809)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 231.396036,-190.934215 z" fill="red"/> <path transform="rotate(301.531392)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 140.311783,-265.165238 z" fill="mediumseagreen"/> <path transform="rotate(329.416879)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 98.789689, -283.267713 z" fill="darkblue"/> <path transform="rotate(348.64311)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 20.001757, -299.332474 z" fill="lightblue"/> <path transform="rotate(352.466)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 19.729226, -299.35056 z" fill="salmon"/> <path transform="rotate(356.236726)" d="M0,0 v-300 A300,300 0 0 1 19.690292, -299.353123 z" fill="green"/>
- In case anyone is interested, below is code for making a pie chart using SVG's Arc function. Each wedge starts out as a vertical line leading up from the origin, and traverses an arc clockwise per pie chart standards. Arcs are then rotated to be "stacked" in succession around the circle. The large arc flag is 1 only if a particular arc is >180 degrees. The destination coordinates are sin θ,–cos θ. The following code would be placed inside a group
- @Cmglee: Thanks for investigating. That's what I was afraid of. :-\ I'm not as familiar with the Arc function, and I was planning on making a generalized spreadsheet that automatically generates SVG code for pie charts. It will be a challenge to generalize wedges from 1 through 359 degrees! —RCraig09 (talk) 23:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hi RCraig09, My pleasure, and you beat me to it! Your formula is correct. The hardest part is deciding on the large-arc flag. My SVG is drawn by a Python script embedded in it. My assumptions are that angles are increasing anti-clockwise from the right (x-axis) and the entire circle is drawn if the beginning and ending angles are the same (strictly, I reduce the ending angles by a tiny amount so that the path still works).
- Good luck with your pie-chart application, though if I may comment, humans are pretty poor at estimating angles except whether it is just above, equal to or below 180°: a percentage bar is easier to interpret correctly.
- Cheers,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 21:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)- I see that you use the mathematical approach to coordinate systems, moving counter-clockwise from an axis pointing to the right. My motivation was to make pie charts, which move clockwise from an axis pointing up.
I've updated these files using the Arc specification (previously I used a self-designed Path approach that was so inflexible that I was motivated to try the stroke-dasharray approach which isn't suitable for Wikimedia!). —RCraig09 (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, I was unsure what system to use and went with the maths way, thinking that tweaking the formula should be straightforward. Your stroke-dasharray method makes perfect sense (I've found even more hacky uses of stroke-dasharray e.g. File:Chessboard480.svg and File:Pastel_checker.svg); it's just a pity that rsvg is buggy. Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 22:33, 6 October 2022 (UTC)