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Update EXPORTING.md
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burghoff authored Sep 26, 2024
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## Document types
### Microsoft Office
In general, Word and Powerpoint have poor support for vector graphics. Historically the only way to add vector graphics to a document was to use the EMF format, which lacks transparency and a number of other essential features. The more recent versions of Office finally added SVG support, but as of this writing it is buggy and unreliable, often failing to properly render text and raster images. The best way to insert graphics is to use the Autoexporter to make a **Portable SVG.** Portable SVGs are SVGs that have been simplified to avoid some of the common rendering bugs that occur in external programs. For example:
In general, Word and Powerpoint have poor support for vector graphics. Historically the only way to add vector graphics to a document was to use the EMF format, which lacks transparency and a number of other essential features. The more recent versions of Office finally added SVG support, but as of this writing it is buggy and unreliable, often failing to properly render text and raster images. The best way to insert graphics is to use the Autoexporter to make a **Plain SVG.** Plain SVGs are SVGs that have been simplified to avoid some of the common rendering bugs that occur in external programs. For example:
<p align="center"><img src="https://github.com/burghoff/Scientific-Inkscape/blob/main/examples/Sterczewski_comparisons_portable.svg" alt="drawing" ></img></p>
Text from a normal SVG is rendered very poorly by Powerpoint, while the EMF has lost its transparency. However, the Portable SVG is rendered well most of the time. If you notice a problematic element, you can mark it for Rasterization—this will rasterize just that element while leaving the rest of the vector graphics intact.
Text from a normal SVG is rendered very poorly by Powerpoint, while the EMF has lost its transparency. However, the Plain SVG is rendered well most of the time. If you notice a problematic element, you can mark it for Rasterization—this will rasterize just that element while leaving the rest of the vector graphic intact.

### LaTeX and Overleaf
LaTeX intrinsically supports vector graphics and has excellent support for PDFs. The Autoexporter was actually designed with LaTeX in mind and makes this convenient. If you store your SVGs somewhere and have the Autoexporter automatically write the exports to your LaTeX document's directory, changes to your SVGs will automatically be reflected in your final document. If you use Overleaf, you can do this by linking your Overleaf account to a Dropbox account.
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It is common for figures to have raster images embedded within, such as photographs, SEMs, Western blots, etc. However, much of the time the embedded images end up making file sizes that are *far* larger than necessary. This can happen if you take a high-resolution photo and clip it, or if you shrink a high resolution photo to make it a small inset, etc. There are papers with embedded photos that have an effective resolution of 10,000 DPI! Most of the time, it doesn't make sense to have a multi-MB TIFF embedded in your document. It was for this reason that the Embedded image resampling option of the Autoexporter was introduced, which resamples your rasters at a more reasonable resolution (typically 300 DPI). It can also embed them as a JPG for further file size reduction, although this should only be done for photos.

### Text
When embedding text, you should exercise some caution with respect to fonts. When generating PDFs, fonts are embedded and you do not have to worry. However, if you are making EMFs or Portable SVGs, you should be aware that the text may not appear exactly the same on all platforms, especially if you are using anything other than the most common fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Calibi, etc.). If you want to guarantee that your fonts look the same everywhere, you should use the "Convert text to paths" option of the Autoexporter. This is also recommended if you are giving a presentation on a computer that is not your own.
When embedding text, you should exercise some caution with respect to fonts. When generating PDFs, fonts are embedded and you do not have to worry. However, if you are making EMFs or Plain SVGs, you should be aware that the text may not appear exactly the same on all platforms, especially if you are using anything other than the most common fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Calibi, etc.). If you want to guarantee that your fonts look the same everywhere, you should use the "Convert text to paths" option of the Autoexporter. This is also recommended if you are giving a presentation on a computer that is not your own.

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