Re: PDF image import

> I have tested the epspdfipe.lua Ipelet[0], which uses pdftoipe
> internally, but pdftoipe doesn't work reliably enough (though
> surprisingly well) to convert my test PDFs into a truthful
> representation in Ipe.

What doesn't work well?  Some problems might be very easy to fix if you 
file a but report with example PDFs attached.

However, anything related to text is a problem.  Ipe's text model is 
just too different from PDF text, as it relies entirely on Latex.

> Am I overlooking an existing option to import scalable images (svg,
> ps, pdf) not created by Ipe? Does everybody else who uses Ipe for
> presentations create their images only through Ipe?

You could try svgtoipe, although again it has unavoidable problems with 
text (you could use an external tool to convert text to paths first).

There are no plans to add PDF import to Ipe now.   While it would be 
relatively easy to support the equivalent of \includegraphics, where you 
would see the included image in the PDF output but nowhere else,  most 
people who ask for this feature really want to see the included image on 
the Ipe canvas.  And that would imply adding a complete PDF interpreter 
to Ipe, which I have no intention to do.

Cheers,
   Otfried