ShaneGreen

Image Formats. . .convert to SVG?

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A few weeks ago someone mentioned that they convert every image they get to an SVG rather than having a half dozen file formats lying around.  I can't remember who it was, but I like their idea.  It shouldn't really affect the file and then I'd be able to see the thumbnail in File Explorer, Inkscape, VinylMaster, etc.  Probably my biggest frustration is with EPS file thumbnails being so wonky. I've tried IrfranView, Adobe, etc and just never know if an EPS thumbnail is going to be viewable the next time you go browsing.

Can anyone think of a good reason not to convert them?

Anyone know of a way to convert a whole file folder or directory without having to do it one-at-a-time?

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If your're familiar with batch script files you could create a batch file to do it using Inkscape. The inkscape command is

Inkscape.exe Filename.eps -l filename.svg

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If you want edit-ability, the native file format always wins.  Programs all work better in their native format.  Sometimes things can be lost, like groups, transformations, gradients, metadata, layers, ect when exporting.  If you just wanted to export to another location so you had better thumbnails, that is fine, disc space is cheap.  I would think converting them all and not keeping the native format to be real bad.

I keep all artwork I create in its native format.  Art work I have found elsewhere I keep most of the time in the format I found it.  Converting can cause data loss like I mentioned above.  I even keep a back up of my artwork based on revision.  A program backs up a time stamped-named file to another location each time I save the file.  If I just relied on exports, I would have know way of replicating an earlier stage with reliability.  Maybe you just need better thumbnails.

Sage Thumbs is a windows program that does ok at adding eps and other thumbnails to windows explorer.  I think it requires ghostscript be installed and in order.

https://www.cherubicsoft.com/en/projects/sagethumbs

If you have CorelDraw, a program called ST Thumbnails Explorer is the best thumbnail viewer I have found.  It finds the installed CoreDraw and uses its engine to generate the thumbnails and also uses ghostscript.  I said it is the best not in its appearance or function, but best in that it handles almost every vector format.  It's just about the only one that makes reliable CDR thumbnails, but handles practically all the ones I've thrown at it, except for maybe a CAD like one or two.

Xnview and XnviewMP are two others that do well.  XnView is their classic viewer and XnViewMP their updated one.  They also make the above SageThumbs.

https://www.xnview.com/en/

Ghostscript is need for those for AI EPS and PDF.

https://www.ghostscript.com

Here is a Windows Explorer screen shot.  With SageThumbs installed you can see eps ai svg and other formats just fine.

 

tumbs.thumb.png.7994352a07eeb483655106787e6046c1.png

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57 minutes ago, ShaneGreen said:

Can anyone think of a good reason not to convert them?

If you wanted to start saving them all to a single format (assuming your design program of choice will edit without having to convert them back to it's native format) I guess that might make sense. Once I have a working "cut" file I don't mess with it again for fear of causing issues at the cutter. I use SignCut Pro 1 and it's fav file format is AI version 8 so all my cut files are down-saved to that legacy format. I label them accordingly with an 8 after the file name. I often have an original format file and a cut file so one might be "Lancaster" and the cut file will be "Lancaster8". For some that may be a bit messy but it works for me. (my native version is AI CS5)  Adobe Bridge does a good job on previews if I need to hunt by thumbs. I would not like having to find stuff without it so the ghost script and options given by dc are probably a great way to go for the non-Adobe user. 

Interesting to note that when importing files into AI either from EPS, PDF, SVG or newer Illustrator formats AI usually/oten creates at least one clipping path and sometimes several that you have to root around and get out of there. 

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4 minutes ago, Wildgoose said:

Interesting to note that when importing files into AI either from EPS, PDF, SVG or newer Illustrator formats AI usually/oten creates at least one clipping path and sometimes several that you have to root around and get out of there. 

CorelDraw does absolutely wonky things with SVG imports.  It will lock each object in the svg and then add a hidden attribute to many.  You have to unlock and remove the hidden attribute to get at them.  Draw has an "ungroup all" option.  It's great.  It strips a bunch of nested groups clean.  But, older versions would freeze the program if you did this on an imported svg.

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That's part of the love/hate thing with open source file formats such as SVG. Anyone and everyone can use the format, but there is no forced standard so different programs implement options in slightly different ways that are not always compatible with other programs.

An interesting note on SVG, it is essentially an xml file and can be edited as such...if you know what you're doing.

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Thanks everyone for your input. 

DarkShadow, I appreciate the batch script! Use them all the time on our servers, so I'm familiar with them and It should save me a ton of time. Thanks.

I should have been a bit more specific, sorry. The conversion would be to files I got from other sources.  A local defunct shop gave me a bunch of their original art work in eps for local sports teems, business logos, etc. Then there was a collection of flags some site was giving away to get you to try their service. That sort of thing.  I keep all of them in an "art" directory, sorted by subject or license.  So vinyl/art/flags/

Any work I do in Inkscape or VinylMaster Pro I save in the native file format and I make incremental backups when I reach a "jumping off" point where I feel it might be handy to have the file at that point in the design process.   Those are saved in a "decals" directory and given a revision letter.  vinyl/decals/flag/dont_tread_revC.vDoc

I've tried Sage Thumbs and maybe I had something set wrong, but I found it cumbersome to view some file types. And thumbnails that were there one day may not be there the next.  It never looked like your screenshot DC, so I'll reinstall it and give it a try again.

Adobe Bridge seemed to do a good job, but their constant marketing drove me nuts. The emails I could ignore, but the pop-ups ads for every other product they offered were ridiculous.

Darcshadow, I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with opensource.  Been running a small database programming shop for 15 years and everything but the toilet paper is opensource: Apache, Linux, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Javascript, Jquery, blah, blah blah.  Some of the greatest innovations have come out of the opensource community and it keeps all of the big boys on their toes, but the lack of standards can be maddening at times.  Anyone with a "better" idea can do it their way, whether anyone supports it or not.

 

 

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Any idea why some eps files show up as black-on-black in InfanView, Adobe Bridge, etc?   It's as though the background color of the file is black, but if you open in Inkscape or import into Vinylmaster the background is white.

If you look real close on some of them you can see the image in a dark gray .

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Most likely related to transparency of the background color. Or could even be that a background color is not specified and one program defaults to black where others go to white. You'd have to open the file in a text editor to know for sure.

edit: I just confirmed if the background color is not specified Inkscape will set it to white.

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Thanks, that pointed me in the right direction.  It was the transparency. To fix in Infranview:  Options> Properties/Settings > Viewing > Main window color.  This changes the background color in the viewer, but also sets the thumbnail backgrounds to white so if they are transparent you can view them. 

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