Installation guide

Svg2TikZ can be used in three different ways:

  • as an Inkscape extension

  • as a command line tool

  • as a python module

Dependencies

SVG2TikZ has the following dependencies:

  • lxml (not required if SVG2TikZ is run as an inkscape extension)

  • xclip or pbcopy (required only if you want clipboard support on Linux or Os X)

  • inkex (not required if SVG2TiKz is run as an inkscape extension)

xclip is a command line tools available in most Linux distributions. Use your favorite package manager to install it. pbcopy is a command line tool available in OS X.

Installing for use with Inkscape

SVG2TikZ is not bundled with Inkscape. You therefore have to install it manually.

The extension consists of the following files:

  • tikz_export.py, extension code

  • tikz_export_effect.inx, effect setup file

  • tikz_export_output.inx, output setup file

Which are located in the svg2tikz/extensions folder. Installing is as simple as copying the script and its INX files to the Inkscape extensions directory. The location of the extensions directory depends on which operating system you use:

Windows

C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\inkscape\extensions\ or if installed through the Windows Store C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Packages\25415Inkscape.Inkscape_9waqn51p1ttv2\LocalCache\Roaming\inkscape\extensions (change USERNAME for the name of the user and 25415Inkscape.Inkscape_9waqn51p1ttv2 to your local name)

Linux

/usr/share/inkscape/extensions or ~/.config/inkscape/extensions/

Mac

/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions/ or ~/Library/Application Support/org.inkscape.Inkscape/config/inkscape/extensions/

Additionally the extension has the following dependencies:

The dependencies are bundled with Inkscape and normally you don’t need to install them yourself. But in the case they are not her, look in the main extensions directory. You can also download them from the repository

Installing for use as library or command line tool

SVG2TikZ started out as an Inkscape extension, but it can also be used as a standalone tool.

Automatic installation via a package manager

SVG2TikZ is available on pypi. You can install it directly with the following command:

pip install svg2tikz

If pip fails while building PyGObject

pip install svg2tikz also pulls in PyGObject, which inkex uses to talk to the Inkscape user interface. PyGObject is compiled during installation and needs the GObject introspection development files, so the installation can stop with an error that mentions gobject-introspection-1.0, girepository-2.0 or pkg-config. This is common on Windows and on Linux systems without the development package installed.

Converting files from the command line or from Python does not use PyGObject, so you can work around the error in one of two ways:

  • Install the missing system package and run pip install svg2tikz again. For example sudo apt install libgirepository1.0-dev gir1.2-girepository-2.0 on Debian or Ubuntu, sudo dnf install gobject-introspection-devel on Fedora, or brew install gobject-introspection on macOS with Homebrew.

  • On Windows, skip it. inkex itself does not need PyGObject on Windows, so install the other dependencies first and then SVG2TikZ without its dependency check:

    $ pip install lxml inkex
$ pip install --no-deps svg2tikz

    To upgrade an installation that already has its dependencies, use pip install --upgrade --no-deps svg2tikz.

The Inkscape extension is not affected either way, since Inkscape ships its own copy of inkex.

Manual installation from a Git checkout

  • Clone this repository from GitHub, using git clone https://github.com/xyz2tex/svg2tikz.git

  • cd into svg2tikz.

  • For installation as a Python 3 package, type

    $ pip install .

You should now be able to import the svg2tikz module from the Python 3 prompt without error:

>>> import svg2tikz

For more information on the use of svg2tikz as a Python module, see the package guide.

Installation using pip also makes available the svg2tikz command-line tool; typically (for non-root installation), it will be in the directory $HOME/.local/bin/, so to run it, you need to ensure that directory is on your PATH.