When I generate LaTeX/Beamer PDFs from Org mode, I get
1. directory "svg-inkscape" containing one PDF file for each SVG I link in the
Org file (SVG from either EasyDraw or other SVGs)
2. directory "ltximg" containing one SVG file for each formula I write in the
Org file.
Indeed, I had to add "--shell-escape" and had installed Inkscape for other
reasons anyway.
My related settings:
#+OPTIONS: tex:dvisvgm
#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{svg}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \svgsetup{inkscapelatex=false, inkscapearea=page}
I use Emacs 28.2 (Org mode 9.5.5). You might want to see more details of my Org
mode configuration at:
https://web222.webclient5.de/doc/swdev/emacs/orgmode/latex
https://web222.webclient5.de/doc/swdev/emacs/orgmode/beamer
I am happy with the results and the process is not brittle in my case.
Regards "rsvg-convert":
I had installed rsvg-convert to resolve an issue using SVG with /pandoc/ to
generate DOCX. But that is unrelated to the built-in Org mode exporter.
See:
https://web222.webclient5.de/doc/swdev/emacs/orgmode/pandoc
rsvg-convert generates PNG. IMHO this defeats starting with SVG in the first
place.
Best regards
Thomas
Am 02.05.2025 um 18:49 schrieb Emin Martinian:
I recently suggested a pull request to el-easydraw
<https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw/pull/37> to improve latex export of
SVG files since the current SVG handling seems clunky. The maintainer of that project
suggested I contact someone at Org-mode to see if it makes more sense to make that
contribution to Org-mode instead.
Briefly speaking, the current latex export of SVG files does not work out of the box
and requires adding |--shell-escape| to the latex args and also installing inkscape.
Even with those, I found the process brittle. If we are going to require inkscape for
SVG handling, it seems cleaner to me to just use inkscape to convert SVG to PDF and
then use |\includegraphics| instead of relying on something like \includesvg
<https://github.com/bzg/org-mode/blob/b6dbf8881076191e1351d7cd15e26547a2531fea/lisp/ox-latex.el#L2879>.
Also, if we go with the path of converting SVG to PDF, we can allow/support other
conversion programs like |rsvg-convert|. Finally, if other backend exporters want to
support SVG, converting SVG to PDF (or other formats) can support that in a similar
way.
If latex experts and/or maintainers of org-mode are broadly in agreement with the above, I would be happy to try
and take the pull request to el-easydraw <https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw/pull/37> and incorporate
something like that into a PR for Org-mode. I think the way to go would be to modify the (when (equal filetype
"svg")
<https://github.com/bzg/org-mode/blob/b6dbf8881076191e1351d7cd15e26547a2531fea/lisp/ox-latex.el#L2877>
portion of |ox-latex.org <http://ox-latex.org>| to call something like the edraw-org-export-latex-link
<https://github.com/misohena/el-easydraw/pull/37/files#diff-d74d9626acb8016adf39b497068745979fef8789a108264c79e45c003a364997R57>
function in my original PR (renamed/modified to not be specific to edraw).
What do you think?
Thanks,
-Emin
