Challenge
Some of our customers are well-known publishing companies who are using InDesign for years to publish materials for conferences and travel agencies and it is crucial for them to work with SVG images. Over 5 years ago, Adobe family stopped supporting SVG-based images except for Adobe Illustrator. For the company that is using automated publishing and printing processes, there is not much space for converting formats and reprogramming robotic software to prepare the materials to be published. That is why we decided to develop our own plugin to support SVG format for Adobe Creative Suite programs.
Approach
Our SVG editor plugin is designed to implement some InDesign low-level interfaces like IScriptingObject, IShape and other. It is not a conversion tool: it is the true implementation of the SVG format in InDesign on the same level as it supports EPS images. The solution we created treats SVG as a custom PageItem. You are able to place it in any location of InDesign program. It could be a frame, text, table cell or any other insertion point.
SVG Kit uses Java and Apache Batik to manipulate SVG files. We added CMYK colors support to handle the pantones in SVG images accurately. Read more on the SVG Kit product page. We also implemented SVG mobile support in a small and efficient library SVG Kit for Android.
Description
SVG plugin converts the image into a raster one every time you need it for InDesign. The same mechanism is applied to produce a vector image. You could export it to EPS or PDF and SVG Kit turns it into SVG. You could place SVG images using JavaScript (JSX) or VBScript/Applescript/ and it will still be a vector image. Our solution provides additional functionality for InDesign standard effects; you could also export HTML as well.
Key Features
- Support of Adobe InDesign and Adobe InDesign Server
- Support of all InDesign effects and Adobe Photoshop Elements
- Support of Adobe InCopy and Adobe Photoshop
- SVG Kit splits images, imported into Photoshop into layers. Support of opacity for each layer
- Support of MacOS X
- Support of SVG, EPS, PDF and PS output formats for InCopy and InDesign
- Support of SVG specs (1.0 – 1.2)
- Support of SVGZ files
- Ability to keep SVG image in vector format: no indirect rasterization or quality loss
- Support of rich set of composites and gradients
- Advanced support for Inkscape files and Adobe Illustrator
- Flattener support for PS/EPS and PDF images
- Vectorized output in PS/EPS, no rasterization
- Support of huge documents
- Availability for fully-functional evaluation versions
Result
Direct support of SVG format for Adobe Creative Suite.
We were able to create a highly functional and unique plugin that is widely appreciated by the leading publishing companies worldwide. It is easy to install our solution to any of the Adobe-based programs, including InDesign and Photoshop, and use SVG images without limitations. SVG Kit solution is very convenient to use as it prevents you from converting SVG into EPS every time you need it. It works with SVG images in InDesign natively, by placing the SVG image on the page. If you apply any changes to the SVG image, they are reflected in the InDesign file. You can also apply all commands and effects to SVG images.