cover art for v4.4 user guides

Klaus-Jürgen, are you or anyone planning a change in design for the
covers to the v4.4 user guides? If not, we'll just amend the 4.2-4.3
covers to show a different version number.

--Jean

Hello Klaus

I am puzzled as to why the graphics for the front and rear cover art for the
guides is in SVG format.

Using SVG format does make it a little awkward if you want to do a quick
change or correction to the cover art. I came across this when I wanted to
update the front and rear covers for the Math Guide to version 4.4. Jean and
myself have managed this, but it should be a lot simpler.

Inkscape is an SVG editor, but has a very steep learning curve which I do
not have time to learn. My suggestion is that we use LibreOffice Draw to
create the front and rear covers for LO guides. Draw is capable in my
opinion and would look better using LibreOffice to create all content for
the user guides. Is there any reason why we do not use LO Draw?

Regards

PeterS

Most of the graphics type people that I know prefer SVG because it is scalable. You design one image and it will scale auto-magically with no loss of detail. The advantage is that after you design a logo (or whatever) it should look good small or large. Also, I thought that it was stored as text so that if you know SVG you can edit it in a regular text editor.

I won't bother with the reasons to use Draw rather than SVG since you obviously already know what they are. I never even checked to see if Draw can handle SVG.

Was thinking about creating a new cover for my book, but I can't say that I have any talent in that area :frowning:

Hi :slight_smile:
I think Draw can handle Svg, or is it Eps? Anyway it's one of the
standard scalar vector graphics formats that Draw seems reasonably
happy with.

Errr, actually i sometimes have a problem with images from Inkscape
that involve text but that is not specific to Draw. It seems to be
more of a Windows problem afaik.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Jean,

Klaus-Jürgen, are you or anyone planning a change in design for the
covers to the v4.4 user guides? If not, we'll just amend the 4.2-4.3
covers to show a different version number.

Thanks for asking, I completely forgot this.
I will ask the Design Team and will have a look for a new design.
Any ideas, wishes or something else?

Hi :slight_smile:
I think Draw can handle Svg, or is it Eps? Anyway it's one of the
standard scalar vector graphics formats that Draw seems reasonably
happy with.

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Media_Support/Summary

Draw can handle both SVG and EPS, but there are some caveats, and a
bunch of TODOs :slight_smile:

(I don't have test runs for images on Win and Mac yet, but I'm told
it's basically all internal libs, so should be about the same as on
GNU-Linux)

Errr, actually i sometimes have a problem with images from Inkscape
that involve text but that is not specific to Draw. It seems to be
more of a Windows problem afaik.

Sounds like a bug report ready to be filed!

Best,
--R

I thought that the draw file format was an xml format like the text,
spreadsheet modules. So like svg it can be edited in a text editor once
decompressed.

My next thought is that if they are an xml file, draw files are also vector
files with little or no resolution change on resizing. Is this not so?

Shelagh

Of course I'n not saying that the svg and odg formats are the same just
that they are both xml files.

Cheers

Shelagh

Hello

The link below is an SVG file of the Math Guide front cover opened in Draw.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/urcyejp28cii9dx/Front_V42_opened_in_LO.odg?dl=0

As you can see, it is a bit of a disaster and the conclusion is to me that
Draw cannot open an SVG file correctly. If there is a method of getting an
SVG file into Draw and display correctly, then please tell me. Also, when
you try to insert an SVG into a Draw document you get the message that the
file cannot be loaded.

If somebody could send me the individual graphics and which font type and
sizes to use, I would like to create front and rear covers using Draw.
Remember that the front and rear covers are full page and scaling should not
be a problem.

Exporting a graphic from Draw into SVG creates a graphic with layers and no
groups.

Regards

PeterS

Hello again

In answer to Tom's query, I am using a MacBook Pro with Yosemite Mac OS.
However, the file I used is an SVG file taken from the ODF resources folder.

I have tried to open this file in Inkscape on an Ubuntu system, but cannot
do anything with it and Inkscape keeps freezing with this file open. I have
also opened the SVG file in iDraw on my MacBook, but still cannot do
anything with the file.

IMO, the SVG files in the resources folder on ODF could be corrupted or not
saved correctly.

Regards

PeterS

Hi :slight_smile:
Is that on Windows? (Sorry i am on a stupid dumb system today that
blocks tons of harmless web-pages)

I think it depends on which program made the svg, or what type of svg
= Inkscape allows "Inkscape svg" and something like "Plain svg". I'm
not sure what the differences are.

Of course one of the many advantages of using OpenSource systems is
that it's relatively easy to post bug-reports and ask questions.
Sadly i am currently handicapped by being stuck on a Windows system,
and a locked-down one at that.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Peter,

Hello again

In answer to Tom's query, I am using a MacBook Pro with Yosemite Mac OS.
However, the file I used is an SVG file taken from the ODF resources folder.

I have tried to open this file in Inkscape on an Ubuntu system, but cannot
do anything with it and Inkscape keeps freezing with this file open. I have
also opened the SVG file in iDraw on my MacBook, but still cannot do
anything with the file.

I have tried Front-42.svg [1] from
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development#Source_files_for_cover_art
and opened it with Inkscape (0.48.5 portable, WIN 8.1).
It works fine.

[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Front-42.svg

Hello Peter,

Hello

The link below is an SVG file of the Math Guide front cover opened in Draw.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/urcyejp28cii9dx/Front_V42_opened_in_LO.odg?dl=0

As you can see, it is a bit of a disaster

It's unusable.

and the conclusion is to me that
Draw cannot open an SVG file correctly.

Especially all the text is only a black box.
The text must be converted in paths to see it. But then you can't change it.

If there is a method of getting an
SVG file into Draw and display correctly, then please tell me. Also, when
you try to insert an SVG into a Draw document you get the message that the
file cannot be loaded.

If somebody could send me the individual graphics and which font type and
sizes to use, I would like to create front and rear covers using Draw.
Remember that the front and rear covers are full page and scaling should not
be a problem.

Maybe I will find some time at weekend.

Exporting a graphic from Draw into SVG creates a graphic with layers and no
groups.

The layers and groups are lost when importing a svg in Draw. So you aren't able to use most of Inkscape svg.

Hi Peter,
(maybe we should open an other thread for this)

Hello Klaus

I am puzzled as to why the graphics for the front and rear cover art for the
guides is in SVG format.

Using SVG format does make it a little awkward if you want to do a quick
change or correction to the cover art. I came across this when I wanted to
update the front and rear covers for the Math Guide to version 4.4. Jean and
myself have managed this, but it should be a lot simpler.

If you only want to change the number I can do such things.

Inkscape is an SVG editor, but has a very steep learning curve which I do
not have time to learn.

Same here with DRAW.

My suggestion is that we use LibreOffice Draw to
create the front and rear covers for LO guides. Draw is capable in my
opinion and would look better using LibreOffice to create all content for
the user guides. Is there any reason why we do not use LO Draw?

It was a decision of the Design Team:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design :

<quote>
The source of your design should be editable within an open-source image editor, such as Inkscape, GIMP, or Pencil.
     PNG is our preferred format for images you upload to the wiki.
     SVG is our preferred format for source files of vector images, which you don't have to publish unless you're asked to.
</quote>

And so I made all my proposals, not only for drafting covers, in Inkscape (and learned it a little bit by the way). But maybe DRAW is easy to learn.

I don't know if DRAW is able to make usable files for high quality printing of posters, banners and so on.

I dare to say: the Design team and the professional designers outside won't work with DRAW, but we can ask them.

PeeWee wrote:

Hello

The link below is an SVG file of the Math Guide front cover opened in Draw.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/urcyejp28cii9dx/Front_V42_opened_in_LO.odg?dl=0

As you can see, it is a bit of a disaster and the conclusion is to me that
Draw cannot open an SVG file correctly. If there is a method of getting an
SVG file into Draw and display correctly, then please tell me. Also, when
you try to insert an SVG into a Draw document you get the message that the
file cannot be loaded.

If somebody could send me the individual graphics and which font type and
sizes to use, I would like to create front and rear covers using Draw.
Remember that the front and rear covers are full page and scaling should not
be a problem.

Exporting a graphic from Draw into SVG creates a graphic with layers and no
groups.

Regards

PeterS

It has always puzzled me why we use SVG to create our cover artwork. Not
that there is anything wrong with SVG per se, but one of our main
principles is to promote the use of ODF, so we should be prepared to
"eat our own dog food" and use Draw.

With this in mind, I have created and uploaded "User Guide Covers (Short
Form).odg" to ODFAuthors:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/resources-for-contributers/proposal-for-guide-covers-in-draw-format/view

This (Short Form ~800Kb) is an adaptation of my original file (~2.5Mb)
which included front & back covers + some other possibly useful bits &
pieces. The uploaded file contains 6 slides:
1. A basic front cover.
2. A possible Getting Started front cover.
3. A possible Writer Guide cover.
4. Large module icons in PNG format. (These are probably unnecessary,
since we already have PNG artwork for them, but mine are sized to
provide good resolution on an A4/Letter page.)
5. Header & footer backgrounds with the RGB colors used in previous guides.
6. A basic back cover, using the Getting Started guide as a template.

Even though our design guidelines suggest using the "Vegur" font, I have
used "Liberation Sans" to be in keeping with the standard font used in
the guides.

With the exception of the Header & footer backgrounds, in slide 5, the
slides are not fully converted to Draw objects. There are still some
parts in SVG and PNG. If there is sufficient interest in using Draw for
our user guides cover artwork, I am prepared to spend the time and
effort to convert/recreate all the slide components to Draw objects.

The file made available under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. It is not a finished or
necessarily an accurate work, but is offered as a starting point for
anyone who chooses to adapt or make use of it.

Dave

Thank you Dave

I shall be combining your suggestions with those from Kurt Jurgens and hopefully we can get new covers in Draw. I will also be using Liberation fonts so that everything about the covers is an LO product.

Regards

PeterS

Hi :slight_smile:
If it is easeir and faster to keep using whatever is currently used
and then plan to migrate to Draw then i don't see any problem with
that. I imagine there was a deliberate decision made on the basis of
finding the best tool for the job, or because of some problem so i
think moving to Draw is a "nice to have" rather than being essential
this time. On the other hand it would be nice and maybe this is
exactly the right time for the move.

This is all, of course, just my own personal opinion.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: