33

I guess the title pretty much describes the problem.

I'm using Inkscape to write a SVG document, and convert it to PDF to share on the web (keeping SVG as original file is safer)
I have many URLs in this document. I know internal links (clickable and not necessarily showing the whole URL on screen) don't mean a lot in SVG and Bitmap images (which are usually supposed as final output document), but they are good in PDF.

Editing output PDF file and adding links is very hard, because is PDF format is complicated and nasty (unless there is a easy to use editor program).
How can add such links the easy way (preferably in Inkscape/SVG)

saeedgnu
  • 486

7 Answers7

27

This functionality has been implemented in Inkscape 1.0:

  • right-click on object
  • select "Create link"
  • enter target address under "Href"
  • store as PDF using "Save a copy..."
  • (I also restricted the output to PDF 1.4)

My system: Linux Mint 19.3, Inkscape 1.0+r73+1.

mzuther is on OpenAI strike
  • 480
8

Building on Király's "theory", I wrote a massively hackish python script to add hyperlinks to the generated PDF.

All the instructions on what you need and how to use it is provided in the header comment of the script. I've tested this with my cutting edge software. If you run into problem because of different inkscape/qpdf version, shoot me an email with your files and I'll see if I can help.

EDIT: I have re-written this script in Go with much better usability. Now you simply add hyperlinks to objects using "Create Link" option when right clicking, and run the svglinkify program.

Mansour
  • 239
  • 3
  • 5
7

The best solution I found to have your links working in PDFs created from Inkscape would be:

  1. save from Inkscape as "Plain SVG".
  2. open in Chrome the plain SVG file.
  3. from Chrome: Print/Save as PDF.
Matthew Williams
  • 4,324
visu-all-world
  • 79
1

One (indirect) way if your links are based on text would be to go through Latex.

When exporting the PDF, tick the box "Dont include text but generate latex file". Then the coordinates of text objects will be available in the .pdf_tex file, where you will need to add manually the links. Then compile with pdflatex.

Joce
  • 1,092
0

If you are facing problem in Inkscape, you can edit your PDF file with an attached link from here: http://www.pdfescape.com/open/

user714118
  • 9
0

Theoretically, right click on any object, and click "Create Link". Then right click again on the same object, for "Link properties" ...

Theoretically. .)

Király István
  • 111
-1
  • Right-Click on the desired object
  • Click "Create Link"
  • A Window will open .. in "href" field add your URL.
  • Save your document as SVG.
  • Open your document with Google Chrome and press Ctrl+P.
  • Right-Click on the preview of your document and click "Inspect element"
  • Copy the link in "src" field and open it with Google Chrome, the document will start download as a PDF document.
Hassan Azzam
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