psfrag only works if eps from inkscape does not include transparency

[William Fernando Oquendo Patino]

Dear all,
I am using inkscape 0.48.4 on Mountain Lion 10.8.4 compiled with homebrew.
I was testing the export of eps + psfrag, and it worked (text is text and can be replaced, in contrast with previous versions as reported in bug 375323, https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/375323), but, if I add a small transparency to some object in the drwaing, then psfrag makes the replacement but the final figure includes both the original and the replacing string. If I remove the transparency, psfrag works correctly (only the replacing string appears).
I am attaching a very simple svg file, which has a circle and the string HELLO, which is supposed to be replaced by psfrag by, let's say, \LaTeX . Just remove and add transparency.

How to reproduce:
- Add some transparency to the circle (already added in the attached svg, just 97.9 %).
- Export to eps
- Use psfrag to replace the HELLO string.
- Convert the dvi to pdf or ps and check the results.
- Remove transparency and reexport.
NOTE: The dvi seems to have the correct info replacement, but cannot be read completely so I am unsure.

System info:
Mountain Lion 10.8.4
Inkscape 0.48.4
Compiled with homebrew formula, no poppler.
pkgconfig 0.28
intltool 0.50.2
boost-build 2011.12-svn
boost 1.52
gettext 0.18.2
bdw-gc 7.2d
glibmm 2.36.2
gsl 1.15
popt 1.16
little-cms 1.19
cairomm 1.12.8
cairomm 1.10.0
pango 1.34.0
Xcode 4.6.3
gcc 4.2.1

[William Fernando Oquendo Patino (woquendo)]

The example after-psfrag output.

[Johan Engelen (johanengelen)]

EPS does not support transparency, probably the cause of your troubles.
This will not fix your issue, but might be a workaround (perhaps preferred over psfrag):
Are you aware of the new EPS/PS/PDF+LaTeX save option?
ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/info/svg-inkscape/InkscapePDFLaTeX.pdf‎

[William Fernando Oquendo Patino (woquendo)]

Thanks a lot for your fast reply.
I did not know that EPS does not support transparency. Sorry for that. Please let me ask you: how does inkscape manage to export to eps if the drawing has transparency? (just want to know to reduce my huge ignorance :) )
Yes, I know about the new export + Latex option. It is a good option for few equations but for complex /and/or many replacements psfrag is much better. For example, I have a simple script which reads the eps and the psfrag replacements and produces the graph. If I want to change a symbol, or to add boldmath, or a color to the latex equations, I will just edit the psfrag inputs (text file, easy, batch support) and recall the script, getting the new graph fast. Within inkscape I will have to do many clicks. And that is just for one figure. For a bunch of figures psfrag will be much well suited for the job. But of course, maybe there is a better way and I just need to get used to.

[Johan Engelen (johanengelen)]

Well, I hate EPS, so my first advice is to ditch that in favor of PDF.
What you do with psfrag is replace a string with some other string. You can do the same with PDF+LaTeX export, by simply typing /commands/ in the Inkscape drawing (say "\string1" and "\string2"). And then you define those commands with the strings you want:

\def\string1{bla bla bla}
\def\string2{bla bla}
\input{inkscapefigure}

something like that

[William Fernando Oquendo Patino (woquendo)]

Ok. That's great !
Still, the result after and before transparency (in the way is managed by inkscape for an eps) seems to be a bug, right? or not?