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New SVG export filter (Technology Preview)

Feedback to: Kai Ahrens

Introduction

Based on the fact that the current SVG export filter available in OpenOffice has some drawbacks and lacks a proper design internally, I created a new filter module from ground up, that should be able to fulfill the needs we have in this area. Needs in this area are extracted from community feedback, customer requests and issues we currently have with the 'old' SVG export filter implementation.

Important: The current release of the new filter module is just meant to be a 'Technology Preview', that offers only basic functionality. It is in no way a complete product and shouldn't be used for production purposes. Please use this release at your own risk.

Features

The goal for this first release was to offer at least the same functionality as we currently have with the old filter, but with support for the export of multiple pages within one SVG file. The whole code currently available was written from scratch and should give us a 'Proof Of Concept' with the current release. It will be the basis for future releases and will be improved constantly. A concrete release schedule is currently not available.

What works so far

  • Support of latest available official specification (SVG 1.1)

  • Aspect ratio is preserved
    PreserveAspectRatio attribute is set to xMidyMid

  • Usage of descriptive identifiers for several kinds of document objects
    Slides/Master Slides as well as drawing objects and group objects get a description element within the SVG output, so that the document structure is kind of preserved. Named objects are also possible in this context

  • Separation of master slides and normal slides in one file

  • Support of multiple slides within one SVG file
    The user should be able to travel through slides within a SVG viewer like Adobe's SVG Viewer or BATIK by just clicking the mouse. This feature has been realized by adding ECMA scripting to the SVG output.

  • Embedding of fonts
    Fonts are now embedded, so that the output should be the same on different systems, even if the document font isn't available on the specific target system.

  • Exporting only single pages or all pages via API

What doesn't work so far

  • Textual bullets are not working very well, with different results on Unix and Windows from time to time

  • Shadow text and hollow text is not working
    These attributes are not supported by the SVG specification, so that we'll have to fake this for correct results.

  • No single or page range export via UI
    All pages are exported by default, you can't change the default via UserInterface to just export single pages

  • Many other things

What is planned next

  • Creation of an export dialog to support export of single pages and page ranges for example

  • Implementing support for different shapes like rects, ellipses and bezier curves instead of creating just simple polygons

  • Better font support

  • Better support of native SVG filling and stroking

  • Animations

  • Sound

Installation

  • Install an OpenOffice.org1.1 or newer if you have not done so already.

  • Download the package that contains the new version of the filter.

  • Copy the zip file in OpenOffice1.1/user/uno_packages folder (Note: USE the zip file as a whole, DO NOT extract it).

  • Open up a shell and switch to the OpenOffice1.1/program directory and start the pkgchk tool. On success, no output is given.

  • Alternatively, you can install the filter for all users of a OpenOffice.org network installation by placing the file into the OpenOffice1.1/share/uno_packages and starting
    pkgchk --shared

  • You can uninstall the package by deleting the file in the uno_packages directory and starting pkgchk again.

Usage

Using the filter from within the application (UI)

After successful installation you should have a new filter entry inside the 'File=>Export' dialog available. The new filter is called SVG – Scalable Vector Graphics (new). The old SVG filter is still available.

As stated above, there's no export dialog available at the moment, so that all pages get exported in every case. This will be changed as soon as a filter dialog will be available.

Using the filter via API

You can use the filter via API in a very easy way. The Java code gives you an example of how to do this.

The following properties are supported so far:

  • OutputStream (interface ::com::sun::star::io::XOutputStream)
    You can set the XoutputStream interface that should be used to export into the underlying stream

  • FileName (String)
    As an alternative to the OutputStream, you can set the FileName property. In this case an output stream is created internally to write to the specified URL

  • PagePos (Integer)
    You can specify which page to export here. Values between 0 and (PageCount-1) export the specified page, all other values export all pages. Default is -1.

Source Code

The source code for the new SVG export filter can be found inside the Framework project filter module. Please checkout this module and change directory to filter/source/svg to find the related code. Revisions for the current release are tagged with OOO_SVG_FILTER_0_1_0 and can be checked out with standard CVS commands.