Draw to SVG

[TobyLobster]

Hi,

I've written a Python program to convert !Draw files to SVG. It's designed to be run from a modern computer (Mac/Win/Linux/etc), and can be used to batch convert Draw files.

Instructions and pretty pictures:

https://github.com/TobyLobster/DrawConversion

Yes I know there are other convertors out there, but most only run from RISC OS, and afaik all of them miss out some !Draw features.

I have taken some effort to make this the most complete and accurate convertor available. It converts ALL the standard object types, including paths, text, transformed text, text areas (with all the formatting commands implemented), sprites, transformed sprites, JPEG images.

I've written about what I learned about these formats while writing the convertor:

https://github.com/TobyLobster/DrawConv ... nsights.md

I have incidentally also documented all the glyphs available in the standard RISC OS fonts:

https://github.com/TobyLobster/DrawConv ... s/fonts.md

I hope some of this will be of interest/use to people.

Toby

[davidb]

Nice work!

Incidentally, you link to my old Drawfile page instead of the repository, which does include a Drawfile to SVG convertor. It's not as complete as yours, but I thought I'd mention it.

[TobyLobster]

Thanks David, and I've updated the link.

[svrsig]

There are quite a few Draw files that contain tags - for example:
TableMate files (type &BCF);
Equasor files (type &D91)
DiscCat files (type &1DF)
FamTree files (type &1E6)
RingBind files (type &1EB)

These load into Impression Publisher as a vector graphic but a CTRL-double click invokes OLE to edit the graphic in the creating app and then save it back into the document. A good description of the contents of a tagged file is given in WROCC Jan 2022 (RingBind) - see here for the draft that was submitted https://www.svrsig.org/Tagged.pdf

The first two have been 'in the wild' since 1993.

This is similar to files that contain '.csv' data but are (for example) typed as Anquet Export Format (.aef) (type &A6F)

[TobyLobster]

Thanks svrsig, interesting to see tagged objects have been used in the wild, and by quite a few different apps too!

[SKS1]

Also some PipeDream 4 Charts (since 1991) [Edit: not Fireworkz hybrid chart/documents (since a few years ago) - that uses custom object type]