Re: Flatten SVGs?

On Feb 18, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Wayne Brissette wrote:
> I've stumbled across an issue where if I open a PDF using OmniGraffle Pro copy and paste the contents into a OG document, then export that drawing as an SVG, a single SVG file is produced. However, if I place the PDF image instead of opening it, the resulting SVG file is not a flat file, it is a folder with a PDF inside it.

This has to do with the difference in what OmniGraffle is doing when you import a PDF in each case. If you open a PDF as if it were a document, OG will parse the contents of the PDF and attempt to convert it into an equivalent OmniGraffle document. Lines and text in the PDF will be converted to lines and text objects in OG. The conversion is far from perfect, but it's often good enough.

If you place the PDF as an image, OG will treat it in the same way it would treat a PNG or JPEG: an embedded image file that occupies some rectangular space on the canvas, but OG doesn't know about the PDF's internal structure. 

> Second, is there a way to consistently get a flat file instead of a folder with an SVG file and PDF when doing an export? 

If the document has any external resources --- any embedded images, basically --- then OmniGraffle needs a place to put them where the SVG file can reference them, so it will export the SVG as a directory + images. If everything can be placed directly in the SVG file, then OG will simply create an SVG file.