SVG Import Filter for OpenOffice 2.0

New Version 1.2.2 (2007-09-02)!

The converter from SVG to OpenDocument format that is provided here makes your OpenOffice 2.0 SVG-ready. The filter is implemented as an UNO component, which can be installed into your OpenOffice using the Tools / Package Manager menu. After you installed the filter, you can open SVG graphics with OpenOffice like all other graphics (e.g. *.odg files). During import, the SVG graphic is translated into OpenDocument graphics primitives that can be displayed and edited with OpenOffice Draw. This transformation uses services from the Apache Batik SVG engine.

The filter produces nearly perfect results for simple SVGs. However, color and transparency gradients are still problematic (due to deficiencies in the current OpenOffice.org implementation of OpenDocument). For a detailed discussion, which part of the SVG vocabulary is currently supported, please refer to the SVG Import Filter Wiki Home at OpenOffice.org. This location is also the right place to discuss the most wanted but missing features and to report SVG documents that are not handled correctly.

Import benchmark

The benchmark image from http://www.linuxrising.org/importsvg/ can be imported using this filter and produces a nearly perfect rendering in OpenOffice.org Draw.

The ODG converted image can be downloaded directly from here.

System requirements

To install the SVG import filter into your OpenOffice distribution, you need the following:

OpenOffice 2.0

Recommended is OpenOffice.org Version 2.0 or above. The filter is tested with version 2.0 and 2.0.1 on Linux and Windows XP. It will not work with OpenOffice versions 1.1.X or below.

Java 5.0 (commonly known as JDK/1.5 or JRE/1.5)

Your OpenOffice installation must use a Java 5.0 runtime environment. The filter will not work with Java versions 1.4.X or below. Before installing the filter, please check in the Tools/Options dialog the settings in the category OpenOffice.org/Java, if a Java version 1.5.X is activated.

Please note: There have been problem reports with the latest Java build 1.5.0_06-b05 on Gentoo Linux. However, I cannot reproduce this problem on my own system. If you encounter a similar problem, please try to use an earlier Java build (1.5.0_03 is known to work well). For Details, please refer to the FAQ section.

For OpenOffice.org 2.3 and later, the SVG import filter version 1.2.2 or above is required.

Installation

1. Download the latest version of the SVG import filter package (see below for a list of improvements and changes since previous versions):

   Download current version for OpenOffice.org 2.1 and above:

   This OpenOffice.org extension package contains the SVG filter component and the required configuration settings.

   Download old version for OpenOffice.org 2.0:

   This UNO package contains the SVG filter implementation as OpenOffice UNO component and the component configuration settings.

2. If you already have a previous filter version installed, make sure to un-install it before upgrading!
3. Install the package into your OpenOffice using the package manager. Open Tools/Package Manager and select My Packages from the dialog. Then click the Add button to install the downloaded file.
4. If SVG images are still shown as text after installing the filter, please re-open the extension manager and check the status of the extension (whether the extension is activated or not). If the extension is not activated, select the svg-import.oxt and click the "activate" button. After activating the extension, again try to open an SVG image. This workaround seems to be necessary in OpenOffice.org versions 2.2 and below.

Batch processing utility svg2office

The latest release adds a batch-processing utility that is able to transform any SVG file into an OpenDocument ODG file without the need to have an OpenOffice.org installation on your machine. This utility is especially useful to transform a larger set of SVG files to ODG format.

Currently, the batch processing utility only has a command line interface. It is invoked in the following way:

java -jar svg2office-1.2.2.jar <some-file.svg>

Version History

The following list summarizes new features in comparison to older versions of the filter:

Version 1.2.2, Revision 2703 (2007-09-02)

• Maintenance release for OpenOffice.org 2.3 and above. Version 1.2.1 did no longer work because some implicit dependency to the OpenOffice.org extension runtime could no longer be resolved.
• Changed the license to GNU GPL v3.
• Upgraded to the current revision of the Apapche Batik SVG engine (Revision 571815).
• Upgraded the filter extension to the new OXT extension format for OpenOffice.org 2.2 and above.
• Upgraded the filter dependencies for generic XML DOM visiting and transformation that have moved to SourceForge.net (net.sf.wtk.xml).
• Updated the build process to use dependency resolution through the Maven repository. Use net.sf.wtk.ant.namespaces for structuring the build files.
• Changed version numbering scheme from SVN revisions to major.minor.release.

Version 1.2.1, Revision 2185 (2006-03-04)

• Bugfix for a wrong coordinate system transformation, which makes text boxes flip upside down under "rare" conditions. Special thanks to David Webb for pointing out and fixing this issue.
• Workaround for rounding problems that occur in OpenOffice.org/Draw, if the source SVG file consists of paths with many very small relative segments. Special thanks to David Webb for pointing out and researching this issue.
• Bugfix for a problem with polyline elements, which disappeared after import, if they consist of only horizontal or vertical segments. Special thanks to Misan for pointing out this issue.

Version 1.2.0, Revision 2131 (2005-12-29)

• Please note the updated system requirements: You need at least OpenOffice.org version 2.0 final to run this filter. If you still have a development snapshot prior to 2.0 final installed, please upgrade. Otherwise, you will experience odd transformation results!

• Dramatically improved transformation of color and opacity gradients. Radial gradients applied to svg:path elements are now almost perfectly approximated (if there are only two gradient stops and the focus point is in the gradient's center).

  If you ever tried to create color gradients by hand in OpenOffice.org/Draw, you will feel that's kind of magic, what the filter does during import. It creates color gradient that you may not have managed to create by hand using the OpenOffice.org/Draw controls. A technique called "bounding box extension" is used to bypass the limitations inherent in OpenOffice.org gradients. This technique adds invisible points to paths filled with gradients to decouple the gradient from the shapes bounding box. To learn more about bounding box extension, see SVG Gradients.

• Implemented transformation of referenced and embedded bitmap images. This greatly improves the results of imports from other business and technical diagramming programs.
• Implemented transformation of svg:use elements. In the resulting OpenDocument, the referenced contents is copied, because OpenDocument does not support reusing parts of the document by reference.
• Enabled transformation of stroke opacity style. In former versions of this filter, all strokes were imported fully opaque. This was necessary due to an issue in OpenOffice.org that was fixed in the version 2.0 final.
• Improved elliptic arc approximation. The results are now consistent with those from Inkscape.
• Fixed wrong transformation results for documents containing transformations with negative scale.
• Improved code quality. Split monolithic transformation class into separate transformations for structure, coordinate systems, styles, and gradients.

Version 1.1.0, Revision 2009 (2005-08-24)

• Transformation of elliptical arcs. Since OpenOffice simply ignores elliptical arcs as paths segments. This caused all round shapes to disappear during import with predecessor versions of the filter. Now, the filter approximates elliptical arc segments of paths with (possibly multiple) cubic splines. For detail, see SVG Elliptic Arcs.
• Path closing normalization. SVG and OpenDocument/OpenOffice differ in their interpretation of non-closed paths. This caused many filled areas of SVG documents to be invisible after import with previous versions of the filter. For detail, see SVG Path Semantics.
• Limit maximum document dimensions. This is a workaround for a funny short int limitation in current OpenOffice. This caused SVG documents with large paper size to be corrupted during import with previous filter versions.
• Viewbox normalization.
  • Viewbox coordinate systems are converted into units of mm/100 to work around Issue 36713.
  • SVG flip-X/flip-Y coordinate system transformations (scaling transformations with a negative scaling factor) are now handled correctly.
• Enhanced media detect service. SVG documents are now identified based on either Public ID or namespace of the root element. This means that the filter will now be automatically applied to all valid SVG documents.
• Bugfix: Handling of degenerated SVG elements (e.g. paths that only consist of "move to" commands) caused a NullPointerException with previous filter versions.

Version 1.0.2, Revision 1974 (2005-08-16)

Easy installation in a single UNO package.

Version 1.0.1, Revision 1970 (2005-08-15)

Fixed problems:

• Media detection is now working. When opening a SVG file, the import filter should be selected automatically. It is no longer necessary to scroll through a lengthy filter list.
• A problem with a NullPointerException that occurred during transformation has been fixed.

Version 1.0.0, Revision 1961 (2005-08-15)

Initial public version.

License and Disclaimer

SVG Import for OpenOffice.org
Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Bernhard Haumacher

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Notice

This product includes software developed by The Apache Software Foundation, namely the Apache Batik SVG engine.

This software contains code from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for the Document Object Model API (DOM API) and SVG Document Type Definition (DTD).

This software contains code from the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) for the definition of character entities used in the software's documentation.

This software contains code from the WTK Software Collection at SourceForge.net for visiting and transforming generic XML DOM trees.

The documentation of this software contains images from the Open Clip Art Library edited with OpenOffice.org and rendered with the Apache Batik SVG Toolkit.

Source code and Support

If you have problems using the filter, want to report your favorite SVG files, which are not imported correctly, or want to have acces to the filter source code, then please go the the SVG Import Filter Wiki Home at OpenOffice.org. There, you will find a technical discussion, what's currently supported, and what's not supported and why. A description, how to obtain the the filter sorce and how to build it your own, can also be found there. Since this site is a Wiki, you are invited to improve it!

Code and documentation © 2005 by Bernhard Haumacher.