SVGs to PDF

A simple command allowing to convert multiple SVG files into a single multi-paged PDF.

It is mainly based on librsvg and therefore, also on cairo.

In order to compile it on Windows-based systems, you will need MSYS2 and/or Mingw (either Mingw32 or Mingw64). Within either 32-bit or 64-bit Mingw, you will need the librsvg2-dev package as well as its dependencies. You can then simply execute make without parameters to compile as binary and then optionally make install to make the command available system-wide (copy in /mingw32/bin/ or /mingw64/bin/).

This tool is more efficient than converting the SVGs into separate PDFs before merging them together as it does not duplicate font subsets.

WARNING:: You must keep fc-cache.exe and fc-list.exe in the same directory as svgstopdf.exe. Otherwise, Pango may not find all your fonts and automatically substitute the font for a different one.

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Installation

See Releases section for Windows binaries.

Win32: v1.0-win32/svgstopdf.exe

Win64: v1.0-win64/svgstopdf.exe

Auxiliary: v1.0-auxiliary/fc-cache.exe and v1.0-auxiliary/fc-list.exe

MSYS2

To compile, first install MSYS2 (https://www.msys2.org/). Download 32-bit or 64-bit version, depending on your system. Follow MSYS2 instructions to install and update MSYS2 and Mingw.

Installing necessary libraries

For 32-bit, open MSYS2 or Mingw32 console and run:

pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-gcc-objc mingw-w64-i686-gcc mingw-w64-i686-libpng \ 
           mingw-w64-i686-fontconfig mingw-w64-i686-cairo mingw-w64-i686-cairomm \
           mingw-w64-i686-librsvg mingw-w64-i686-gdk-pixbuf2 mingw-w64-i686-glib2 \
           mingw-w64-i686-json-glib mingw-w64-i686-python2-gobject \
           mingw-w64-i686-python3-gobject glib2 mingw-w64-i686-freetype

For 64-bit, open MSYS2 or Mingw64 console and run:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc-objc mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-fontconfig mingw-w64-x86_64-cairo mingw-w64-x86_64-cairomm \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-librsvg mingw-w64-x86_64-gdk-pixbuf2 mingw-w64-x86_64-glib2 \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-json-glib mingw-w64-x86_64-python2-gobject \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-python3-gobject glib2 mingw-w64-x86_64-freetype

Type Y to install, including all dependencies. This process will take several minutes, depending on download speed and your system.

Download and create directory for svgstoppdf

Download .zip or clone to your MSYS2 home directory. Default installation path is C:\msys64\home\USERNAME\ or ~/ from Mingw32 or Mingw64 console.

Keep files in svgstopdf directory (i.e. C:\msys64\home\USERNAME\svgstopdf or ~/svgstopdf.

Compiling

For 32-bit, delete or rename Makefile (which is 64-bit). Rename Makefile(32-bit) to Makefile. Open Mingw32 console and run:

>cd svgstopdf
>make

For 64-bit, open Mingw64 console and run:

>cd svgstopdf
>make

Executable file

You may now copy the svgstopdf.exe, fc-cache.exe, and fc-list.exe executables to whichever directory you choose.

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Usage

Here is an example of use of this script:

svgstopdf 1.svg 2.svg out.pdf

or

svgstopdf *.svg out.pdf

The main purpose of this script is to avoid loading duplicate font subsets while including several vector images in a LaTeX document. After generating the PDF from various SVGs, you can load them easily using the LaTeX graphicx package:

\includegraphics[page=1]{out.pdf}
\includegraphics[page=2]{out.pdf}

Because this syntax using pages makes it hard to figure out which image is being included, an additional --latex-package option may be passed to the script in order to generate a LaTeX package that allows for easier integration:

svgstopdf 1.svg 2.svg out.pdf --latex-package

or

svgstopdf *.svg out.pdf --latex-package

This command will generate an additional svgimages.sty that you must keep in the same directory as your generated PDF file as well as your LaTeX source files. Your LaTeX code to load the images will now become:

\usepackage{svgimages}

\includesvg{1.svg}
\includesvg{2.svg}

You may specify a path option to svgimages. Use this option similarly to the path option for graphicx. Multiple directories can be specified (e.g. path={{/location1}{./location2}{C:/path/to/location3}}. However, you should generally use only one path location -- the one where you will story the generated PDF file (containing all the SVGs).

\usepackage[path={{./subdirectory/}}]{svgimages}

\includesvg{1.svg}
\includesvg{2.svg}

You may even pass some includegraphics-supported parameters:

\includesvg[scale=0.8]{1.svg}

or

\includesvg[width=0.8\textwidth]{2.svg}