Poorly formatted text when importing PostScript files.

[Neville Palmer]

I am running Inkscape 0.48 on Windows 7 and have Ghostscript 9.02 installed.
I have several PostScript files generated with GMT (Generic Mapping Tool - http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/) which I was hoping to edit with Inkscape.
When I import the ps file into Inkscape everything initially appears correct until I attempt to edit the text.
What should be individual text items appear as a single block (even once I have ungrouped as far as possible). If I attempted to insert additional characters within the text any new characters are all overtyped in the same location instead of being inserted. I have been able to separate the individual text items using the "Split text..." extension (by line) but this does not resolve the overtyping text issue. Additionally, if I attempt to move any text item after splitting, the text box enlarges unusually. That is, the first character moves to the location that would be expected but all subsequent characters move to the bottom or top of the drawing extents.
I am not familiar with the SVG XML format at all but have attempted to look at the resulting resulting Inkscape file using the XML Editor. It appears that the text items do show as separate items but are somehow grouped under some sort of higher-level "container". If I edit (insert/delete characters) within the XML editor this appears to update the drawing correctly and I am then able to subsequently edit the text correctly in the GUI. Also when looking at the text attributes in the XML editor there appears to be multiple "x" values for each item (and also multiple "x" values for the higher level "container"). If I delete all "x" values except the first one I can now also move the text within the GUI correctly.
I have attached an example of the PostScript file I am attempting to import.
As confirmation that the ps file I am attempting to import doesn't have any significant faults I have successfully converted the same PS file to SVG using the shareware version of pstoedit without any of the issues mentioned above. The SVG file created by pstoedit also appears much simpler than the one created by the Inkscape/Ghostscript import.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Is this a report about the way text is imported from PS/EPS/PDF files (not a bug AFAIU, see [1]) or that such text is difficult to edit in Inkscape (duplicate of bug #188794)?

[1] <http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.46#PDF_and_AI_import> (see "Text editing tips")

[su_v (suv-lp)]

(Note: Postscript files (PS/EPS) opened in Inkscape are converted to a PDF file on-the-fly with ps2pdf from Ghostscript, and then imported as PDF file using the internal poppler-based routines)

[su_v (suv-lp)]

(Note 2: Inkscape was switched from pstoedit to using Ghostscript in version 0.47 (AFAIK for better quality and availability, see bug #171241 and <http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.47#PostScript_and_EPS_import>)

[Neville Palmer (0cs935k-wmgl-wz6bkyh)]

Yes this does appear to be an exact duplicate of bug #188794. Sorry I did not see this when I originally searched.
As I understand from what is posted above, the PS/PDF import positions each character with manual kerning to ensure the original formatting is preserved as accurately as possible. As an alternative request, would it be possible to include an option when importing to remove all manual kerning if the exact formatting is not critical but ease of editing is.

I have a significant number of files I will regularly need to edit and the methods suggested in the links above are not really practical. I'm sure from other comments I've seen that others would also find this useful.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Thanks for the feedback - linking as duplicate to bug #188794 as confirmed to track any changes/progress of this issue (editing absolutely kerned text) in one location. Please add a comment here and revert the duplicate status if you don't agree and think this was done in error.

With regard to the proposed alternative request: not sure if such a workaround would actually require a similar effort in coding as would implementing additional text editing features that would overcome the current limitations.

An easier workaround might be to optionally use a different (newly written) input extension which reverts to using pstoedit (Postscript -> SVG) instead of Ghostscript (Postscript -> PDF -> SVG). This extension then could be used by explicitly selecting it in the 'File > Open…' dialog (the default input extenstion for PS /EPS files would still use the official version).