Labels are not searchable in SVG output

[John Hagen]

Consider the following code:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

from pathlib import Path

import matplotlib
import schemdraw
from schemdraw import ImageFormat
import schemdraw.elements as elm

matplotlib.use("Agg")


def main() -> None:
    d = schemdraw.Drawing()
    d.add(elm.Resistor(d="right", label="1Ω"))
    d.add(elm.Capacitor(d="down", label="10μF"))
    d.add(elm.Line(d="left"))
    d.add(elm.SourceSin(d="up", label="ABC"))
    d.draw(show=False)

    svg_data = d.get_imagedata(ImageFormat.SVG)
    Path("out.svg").write_bytes(svg_data)

    pdf_data = d.get_imagedata(ImageFormat.PDF)
    Path("out.pdf").write_bytes(pdf_data)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

When out.pdf is created, the label ABC is searchable.

But when out.svg is created, it seems as though each letter is rastered a separate object, so searching (in Inkscape 1.0.2 for example) does not work.

Note, in Inkscape, I typically Select All, and run Object | Ungroup twice to make individual elements movable.

Is it possible to change how the SVG is rendered? Or is this out of schemdraw's control?

[cdelker]

This looks like a Matplotlib setting. See this. Matplotlib’s default behavior for SVG output is to convert text to paths, so Inkscape doesn’t recognize the characters as text, but as path elements. It can be changed to output <text> svg elements, which will be searchable, using

matplotlib.rcParams['svg.fonttype'] = 'none'

The downside is that an SVG output with this setting relies on having the fonts installed; it may not look identical on another machine without the same fonts used by Matplotlib.

[John Hagen]

Thanks this works great! I opened a PR to add docs for this to help others in the future.

[cdelker]

Merged, thanks!