|  |  | 12.7 Importing other formats

## 12.7 Importing other formats

#### Svgtoipe: Importing SVG figures

The auxiliary program svgtoipe converts an SVG figure to Ipe format. It cannot handle all SVG features (many SVG features are not supported by Ipe anyway), but it works for gradients.

svgtoipe is not part of the Ipe source distribution. You can download it separately.

#### Pdftoipe: Importing Postscript and PDF

You can convert arbitrary Postscript or PDF files into Ipe documents, making them editable. The auxiliary program pdftoipe converts (pages from) a PDF file into an Ipe XML-file. (If your source is Postscript, you have to first convert it to PDF using Acrobat Distiller or ps2pdf.) Once converted to XML, the file can be opened from Ipe as usual.

The conversion process handles many kinds of graphics in the PDF file fine, but doesn't do very well on text—Ipe's text model is just too different.

pdftoipe is not part of the Ipe source distribution. You can download and build it separately.

#### Ipe5toxml: convert Ipe 5 files to Ipe 6 file format

If you still have figures that were created with Ipe 5, you can use ipe5toxml to convert them to Ipe 6 format. You can then use ipe6upgrade to convert them to Ipe 7 format.

ipe5toxml is not part of the Ipe distribution, but available as a separate download.

#### Figtoipe: Importing FIG figures

The auxiliary program figtoipe converts a figure in FIG format into an Ipe XML-file. This is useful if you used to make figures with Xfig before discovering Ipe, of if your co-authors made figures for your article with Xfig (converting them will have the added benefit of forcing your co-authors to learn to use Ipe). Finally, there are quite a number of programs that can export to FIG format, and figtoipe effectively turns that into the possibility of exporting to Ipe.

However, figtoipe is not quite complete. The drawing models of FIG and Ipe are also somewhat different, which makes it impossible to properly render some FIG files in Ipe. In particular, Ipe does not support FIG's interpolating splines, depth ordering independent of grouping, pattern fill, and Postscript fonts.

You may therefore have to edit the file after conversion.

figtoipe is not part of the Ipe distribution. You can download and build it separately. figtoipe is now maintained by Alexander Bürger.