Inkscape-parser

Inkscape-parser parses the elements of an Inkscape SVG file (shapes, text, paths, etc) into an array of objects.

Comes with full Typescript support.

Get it on NPM: npm install inkscape-parser

Here is an example output:

    // Inkscape SVG elements
    {
        "type": "text",
        "layer": "text",
        "id": "text3769",
        "x": 117.16331,
        "y": 137.12299,
        "value": "circle"
    },
    {
        "type": "path",
        "layer": "paths.subpaths",
        "id": "path4965"
    },
    {
        "type": "rect",
        "layer": "shapes",
        "id": "rect846",
        "label": "rect846-brown",
        "width": 36.977692,
        "height": 23.993158,
        "x": 28.509518,
        "y": 40.647236
    },
    {
        "type": "rect",
        "layer": "shapes",
        "id": "rect1000",
        "label": "rect1000-blue",
        "width": 36.066158,
        "height": 64.996948,
        "x": 43.635647,
        "y": 82.519333
    },
    // [...]

Features

This package is built on top of svg-parser and handles a few extra things for you:

• The output is a simple array rather than a tree, making it easy to display and convert into CSV or other formats.
• Any multi-line text is merged into a single element from multiple tags.
• Additionally, any html entities (> < etc) in text elements are automatically unescaped using he
• The inkscape label for each element is included.
• Each element lists all of its parent layers (delimited by a dot: for example "root_layer.sub_layer.sub_sub_layer") according to their inkscape labels.
• Includes a CLI for convenience.

How to use

You can install it as an NPM package or run it directly via the included CLI tool.

Install from NPM: npm install inkscape-parser

Then import the parseInkscape function from this package:

import { parseInkscape } from "inkscape-parser";

// You should provide the inkscape svg as a string
const svgString = `
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
    <!-- Created with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) -->

    <svg
    width="297mm"
    height="210mm"
    viewBox="0 0 297 210"
    version="1.1"
    id="svg5"

    [...]
`

// parseInkscape() returns an object with the parsed SVG elements
const { elements } = parseInkscape(svgString)

console.log(elements)

/* Prints something like the following:
[
    {
        "type": "text",
        "layer": "text",
        "id": "text3769",
        "x": 117.16331,
        "y": 137.12299,
        "value": "circle"
    },
    [...]
]
*/

Options

parseInkscape also accepts an Options object:

const defaultOptions = {
    include: [], // Only the listed inkscape tag names will be returned
    exclude: [], // None of the listed inkscape tag names will be returned
    unescape: true, // Escape any HTML entities inside text elements (default: true)
    layerSeparator: ".", // Used to delimit the names of parent layers (e.g.: parent.child.subchild)
}
const { elements } = parseInkscape(svgString, defaultOptions)

Page properties and unprocessed elements

parseInkscape also returns the page properties (width, height, etc) and the tree of unprocessed elements as parsed by svg-parser.

const { pageProperties, unprocessed } = parseInkscape(svgString)

// Print the Inkscape page properties
console.log(pageProperties)

Output:

"pageProperties": {
    "width": "297mm",
    "height": "210mm",
    "viewBox": "0 0 297 210",
    "version": 1.1,
    "id": "svg5",
    "inkscape:version": "1.1.2 (b8e25be833, 2022-02-05)",
    "sodipodi:docname": "inkscape2.svg",
    "xmlns:inkscape": "http://www.inkscape.org/namespaces/inkscape",
    "xmlns:sodipodi": "http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/DTD/sodipodi-0.dtd",
    "xmlns": "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg",
    "xmlns:svg": "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
}

CLI usage

npx inkscape-parser ./drawing.svg ./output.json

• the first argument is the path to any inkscape file
• the second argument is the path where the parsed data will be saved (JSON format)