Font list GUI

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Just one question to admins - can i propose this as a "feature request"?

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Alex (cardigan99) said on 2012-10-24:
> Just one question to admins - can i propose this as a "feature request"?

Before promoting such a all-in-one request to be moved to the bug
tracker - please spend a few minutes and search the bug tracker for
existing ones: similar items have been filed multiple times already, and
new duplicates won't achieve anything except increase the work load for
the bug triage team.

Alex asked on 2012-10-15
> The most basic features people are asking for are:
> 1) same fonts in SVG (inkscape view) / PDF / SVG
> (your favorite internet browser view)
> 2) same fonts under different operation systems (linux / macos / win)

- cross-application and cross-platform (web) fonts vs system fonts:
Inkscape - like web browsers and other installed software - depends on
the fonts installed on the local system (each user on each system is
responsible for which fonts are installed in addition to those provided
with the system itself). Inkscape, web browsers and other SVG renderers
can't depend on a private (copy) of installed fonts which then is
magically shared among all applications which happen to be able to
render SVG (and HTML) files.
If the font backend used in Inkscape (fontconfig/freetype/pango) only
partially supports native font management features (as has been reported
for Windows and Mac OS X), this needs to be implemented / addressed in
the platform-specific backends of those external libraries first.

- PDF import:
Fonts for text in PDF files opened/imported in Inkscape are a different
issue. The known problems with "missing" fonts for text in imported PDF
files are mostly due to the fact that Inkscape does not support using
the (partial) fonts which are subset and embedded in PDF files for
rendering (instead it tries to find a matching font installed on the
local system). In addition to that, depending on how the PDF was
originally generated, and which type of fonts had been used originally,
the name of the subset and embedded font in the PDF file may have been
auto-generated and doesn't allow Inkscape to find a matching font among
the local installed ones (no workaround possible with such files).

There are already numerous (often duplicate) reports about this known
issue filed. Please search the bug tracker before filing yet another
one. Keep also in mind that Inkscape is not aiming to be a PDF editor
(nor claims to be one): Inkscape is an SVG editor, and editing PDF files
with an SVG editor is actually a sequence of conversions to and from
SVG, based to a large extent on external libraries (poppler for import,
cairo for export), which can't guarantee identical appearance when
round-trip editing foreign file formats in Inkscape (SVG and PDF may
both support vector graphics, but they have different sets of native
features).

- PDF export:
With regard to PDF export from Inkscape: Inkscape (or rather the 'Cairo'
graphics library Inkscape uses for PDF export) always subsets and embeds
the used fonts in the PDF file (the text is still text in the PDF file
(i.e. searchable)). Current compliant PDF viewers all support this
feature (it is part of the PDF specification).
See also:
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.47#PDF.2C_PostScript.2C_and_EPS_export>
The PDF export option to convert text to path on export is rarely
required now (Inkscape 0.47 and later), mostly in workflows where it is
known that software which will post-process the PDF does not yet support
subset/embedded fonts.

> 3) font list management

Since Inkscape uses the system fonts, basic font management is also an
external task, and not in the scope of Inkscape.
There have been several requests filed to implement additional features
for the font list menu in Inkscape, e.g.
- Bug #171456 “Preferred font list in font dialog”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/171456>
- Bug #336908 “Suggestion for fonts menu”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/336908>
- Blueprint: "Visual clustering of fonts“
  <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/font-clustering-visually>

> 4) get rid of the need to convert text->path (for some routine
> updates or when you want to be sure that design will not be
> corrupted). Sometimes it destroys updating process.

- workflow
If SVG files are indeed "corrupted" (i.e. broken, fail to open in
Inkscape, and no longer render in other SVG viewers) by converting a
normal text to path (actually a group of paths), you should file a new
bug report about it, attach the original SVG file, the broken SVG file,
and steps to reproduce (along with providing information about your OS
and Inkscape version). Otherwise, consider adjusting your workflow (save
original file as 'Inkscape SVG' with text as text, save a copy with text
converted to path, if later edits are needed, edit the text in the
original 'Inkscape SVG' and save a fresh copy with text converted to
path. Keep only the original 'Inkscape SVG' file under version control).

- SVG fonts
If this item is about support for SVG fonts in Inkscape - this is a
known feature request (part of the roadmap), already tracked in
- Bug #170963 “Support for SVG fonts (rendering, embedding,...)”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170963>

- web fonts, or other solutions?
If it is not about SVG fonts either, please first clarify what else
could be used in SVG to have identical appearance of text guaranteed
across all applications, systems and platforms, independent of any
locally available fonts, if not based on outlining text (convert to
path), or using SVG fonts (which AFAIK are not supported by many browser
vendors either), nor based on accessing the web to retrieve a web font
via @fontface rule.
A somewhat related feature request could be
- Bug #741135 “@font-face location management”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/741135>
but AFAIU that one doesn't request to add support for (online) web fonts
in inkscape for local rendering of texts, only to ease editing an
internal stylesheet. <opinion>IMHO it is unlikely that support for
accessing online web fonts from within Inkscape for font rendering
on-canvas will be added.</opinion>

> 5) have a collection of fonts for a certain design
> (like having a custom color palette)

Scope of this request is unclear to me, but I guess it might include
these two basic aspects / feature enhancements:
- being able to load fonts from local folders (bug #677370, bug #916893)
- being able to save an SVG file along with copies of local resource
files, to ease sharing with users on other systems (bug #386664, bug
#400356)

Thank you for such a detailed answer. The implementation issues become much more clearer. I really appreciate the time you spent to explain all those details.

And at this point of time i am looking forward to the new release of InkScape to implement new related features :)