pdf to svg conversion puzzle

Question

I am looking for a reliable way to convert a pdf from a latex file to SVG for display in a browser

\documentclass{article}
\pagenumbering{gobble}
\usepackage{blkarray}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{darkred}{rgb}{0.55, 0.0, 0.0}
% -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\begin{document}
\begin{blockarray}{rrrrrrrrrr}
     \begin{block}{rrrr(cccc|c)!{\quad}l}
          &  &  &  & 1 & 2                   & 2  & 1  & 8  & the pivot is in row 2, col 2\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{$\boxed{1}$}}}       & -1 & 0  & 0  & It will be multiplied by\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{-2}}} & 1  & -2 & -5 & entries in column 1 of $E$ \
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{\ 1}}} & -1 & 1  & 2  & \
     \end{block}
\end{blockarray}
\end{document}

I had used \documentclass{standalone} which did not work I ended up with removing the pagenumber and using the following ugly shellscript

!/bin/sh
latexmk -pdflatex $1.tex && \
latexmk -pdflatex -c $1.tex && \
pdf2svg $1.pdf /tmp/temp_$1.svg && \
inkscape -D --without-gui --file=/tmp/temp_$1.svg --export-plain-svg $1.svg

Questions

Is there a simpler way to create the svg so that the image is cropped to the actual extent? (the -D option for inkscape)
Is there a simpler way to create the pdf so that it only displays that image, rather than the whole page?
The parentheses enclosing the matrix get messed up with most of my attempts. What would I need to do to ensure that parens will be correctly rendered
can whatever solution use xelatex rather than pdflatex?

What problem did you get when you used standalone? I’ve sometimes wrapped the contents in display math or a minipage to get that to work. — Davislor, Aug 26 '20 at 04:00
pdf2svg is obsolete, afaik. Use dvisvgm instead. It ships with TeXLive and MiKTeX. — AlexG, Aug 26 '20 at 05:55
Moreover, it doesn't compile: ! Undefined control sequence. <recently read> \boxed — AlexG, Aug 26 '20 at 06:23
Oops! I also had \usepackage{nicematrix} in the original preamble — ea42_gh, Aug 26 '20 at 12:07
It does, if you use the right options ;-): dvisvgm --font-format=woff2 --zoom=-1 --exact your-example.dvi — AlexG, Aug 26 '20 at 14:49
nah, I still have examples where dvisgm messes up the parens, while pdf2svg does not! — ea42_gh, Aug 28 '20 at 15:37
I'm not sure I understand your problem, but if you just want to convert a pdf to an svg, why not just use Inkscape? — schtandard, Jan 27 '21 at 20:30
@ea42-gh amsmath package is missing... then you might have got the Undefined control sequence error, as I had. — LEo, Jan 27 '21 at 21:56
@AlexG why is pdf2svg obsolete? IMHO, dvi output is much more obsolete, so usage of dvisgm makes no sense. — wipet, Feb 22 '22 at 07:26
That's bean-counting. Besides, dvisvgm is just a name. It also converts PDF. — AlexG, Feb 22 '22 at 07:58
For reference, -P flag can be used to make dvisvgm output PDF. That having said, unfortunately none of dvisvgm, inkscape, pdf2svg preserves the hyperlinks in my testing. StackOverflow question on that: Inkscape pdf to svg export - retain hyperlinks - Stack Overflow — user202729, Dec 29 '23 at 14:44
Related: conversion - How can I use TikZ to make standalone (SVG) graphics? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange — user202729, Feb 03 '24 at 12:24

AlexG · Answer 1 · 2022-02-22T09:15:49.047

Instead of pdf2svg, which is unmaintained, I would use dvisvgm which is part of TeXLive/MiKTeX and actively maintained.

The combination of --exact and --zoom=-1 trims the output to the visible content and makes it responsive which facilitates embedding into HTML (options explained here).

latex input
dvisvgm --exact --zoom=-1 --font-format=woff2 input

\documentclass{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\usepackage{blkarray}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{darkred}{rgb}{0.55, 0.0, 0.0}
% -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\begin{document}
\begin{blockarray}{rrrrrrrrrr}
     \begin{block}{rrrr(cccc|c)!{\quad}l}
          &  &  &  & 1 & 2                   & 2  & 1  & 8  & the pivot is in row 2, col 2\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{$\boxed{1}$}}}       & -1 & 0  & 0  & It will be multiplied by\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{-2}}} & 1  & -2 & -5 & entries in column 1 of $E$ \
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{\ 1}}} & -1 & 1  & 2  & \
     \end{block}
\end{blockarray}
\end{document}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 27 '21 at 22:01

Just add the missing amsmath.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{blkarray}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{darkred}{rgb}{0.55, 0.0, 0.0}
% -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\begin{document}
\begin{blockarray}{rrrrrrrrrr}
     \begin{block}{rrrr(cccc|c)!{\quad}l}
          &  &  &  & 1 & 2                   & 2  & 1  & 8  & the pivot is in row 2, col 2\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{$\boxed{1}$}}}       & -1 & 0  & 0  & It will be multiplied by\
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{-2}}} & 1  & -2 & -5 & entries in column 1 of $E$ \
          &  &  &  & 0 & {\colorbox{yellow}{\color{darkred}{\ 1}}} & -1 & 1  & 2  & \
     \end{block}
\end{blockarray}
\end{document}

Then compile and convert from PDF to SVG as you suggested.

#!/bin/bash
latexmk -pdflatex $1.tex && \
latexmk -pdflatex -c $1.tex && \
pdf2svg $1.pdf $1.svg

score -1 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 27 '21 at 21:54

Each of the toolchains fails under diverse circumstances, depending on the latex engine, the document class and the packages used.

I am adding a current (python/linux) version of a function building the toolchain tex_program -> svg_converter -> svg_crop as a a list of command parameters that can be used in a python call to run a subprocess. Not the nexec parameter is the number of times tex_program will be invoked. It is not applicable for all combinations...

def build_commands( tex_program=["pdflatex"], svg_converter=[["pdf2svg"],".pdf"], use_xetex=False, use_dvi=False, crop=False, nexec=1):
    if isinstance( tex_program, (list,)) is False:
        tex_program = [tex_program]
if tex_program[0]  == &quot;pdflatex&quot;:
    if use_xetex is True:
        if use_dvi is True:
            if nexec &gt; 1:
                _tex_program = [&quot;xelatex&quot;, &quot;--no-pdf&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot; ]
                _svg_converter = [[&quot;dvisvgm&quot;, &quot;--font-format=woff2&quot;, &quot;--exact&quot;], &quot;.xdv&quot;]
            else:
                _tex_program = [&quot;latexmk&quot;, &quot;-xelatex&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot; ]
                _svg_converter = [[&quot;dvisvgm&quot;, &quot;--font-format=woff2&quot;, &quot;--exact&quot;], &quot;.xdv&quot;]
        else:
            if nexec &gt; 1:
                _tex_program = [&quot;xelatex&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot; ]
                _svg_converter = [[&quot;pdf2svg&quot;], &quot;.pdf&quot;]
            else:
                _tex_program = [&quot;latexmk&quot;, &quot;-xelatex&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot; ]
                _svg_converter = [[&quot;pdf2svg&quot;], &quot;.pdf&quot;]
    else:
        if use_dvi is True:
            _tex_program = [&quot;latexmk&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot;, &quot;-dvi&quot; ]
            _svg_converter = [[&quot;dvisvgm&quot;, &quot;--font-format=woff2&quot;, &quot;--exact&quot;], &quot;.dvi&quot;]
        else:
            _tex_program = [&quot;latexmk&quot;, &quot;-etex&quot;, &quot;-pdf&quot; ]
            _svg_converter = [[&quot;pdf2svg&quot;], &quot;.pdf&quot;]
else:
   _tex_program = tex_program
   _svg_converter = svg_converter
if crop:
    _svg_crop = ([&quot;inkscape&quot;, &quot;-D&quot;, &quot;--without-gui&quot;, &quot;--file&quot;], [&quot;--export-plain-svg&quot;])
else:
    _svg_crop = None

return _tex_program, _svg_converter,_svg_crop

To invoke the programs, I use code along the lines of the following

tex_program.append( tex_path )
for _ in range(nexec-1):
    run_subprocess(tex_program, cwd=working_dir)
    check_output(tex_program, cwd=working_dir)
svg_program = svg_converter[0] + [pdf_path, svg_path]
check_output(svg_program, cwd=working_dir)

if svg_crop is not None:
    crop_program = svg_crop[0] + [svg_path] + svg_crop[1] + [svg_path]
    check_output( crop_program, cwd=working_dir)

pdf to svg conversion puzzle

3 Answers3