I can't get text objects to have the correct border

[Will Pittenger]

Months ago, I create a map of a race track in downtown Detroit. I went to replace it with an all new image. However, one part I wanted to keep was some of the text objects so I didn't have to retype the text. When I created the original, I misspelled a word. I don't want to do that again. The text is spelled right now and I wanted to keep it.

When I created the old file, I needed text objects to be black with a white border. (While the main use is Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons, I also turn each image into an overlay for Google Earth. This forces me to assume the background will be dark, not white like in Wikipedia.) So I set the stroke of the text object to white. This prevented the border from being noticeable unless I made the stroke thick enough that the interior of the letters vanished. I tried to use bold to fix that, but with little effect.

Since then, I solved the problem (mostly) by using clones of the text objects that need borders. I strip the original of all stroke information using the XML editor. I then set the stroke of the clone to white and put it behind the original. You see the fill of the original and the stroke of the clone.

Unfortunately, when I had 0.46 copy the text objects from the old version (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Downtown_Detroit_Street_Circuit.svg) to the new file, it appears to have been confused. I went to strip the XML of the stroke information for the originals just like before. I then created the clones. However, of those, most of the text objects didn't get the border. In fact, I see the old border. (The text objects with the clones border visible in the upper right are new.) One object, "Goodyear Tunnel" somehow got a black stroke that I have verify is one the original, but NO stroke attributes are present in the XML.

I have verified that both the 9-30-2008 and 10-2-2008 builds can't display the file (as created by 0.46) correctly either. Of the text objects copied from the old file, only "Ford Corner", "Kodak Camera Corner", and "Larnel Tunnel" look right.

[Will Pittenger (will-pittenger1)]

I have since uploaded to Wikimedia Commons the new version. I ended up recreating those text objects. If you want to see the version I copied the text objects from, please use this link rather than the one listed above: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/38/20081004085340%21Downtown_Detroit_Street_Circuit.svg

[su_v (suv-lp)]

It appears that the cloned text cannot have a custom stroke style when the inner <tspan> element of the original text object has its own style definition that includes stroke and stroke-width.

To fix it:
1) select the original text object
2) switch to the Text tool
3) select all text (Ctrl+A)
4) 'Unset' the stroke for the *selected* text

result: the stroke of the clone now is rendered as expected.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Note: confirmed because maybe this could made be more obvious in the UI for text objects?