merging text

[Andrei Arici]

Working with text isn't Inkscape's strength. This is unfortunate and while I know Inkscape isn't DPS, it's only a few functions away from doing a good job when it comes to text too.

We already have the split-text extension helping us work with text, but I'd appreciate to see the ability to merge text objects into one - especially a flowed text object.

This idea was mentioned several times in the threads linked below but discussions resulted in only the splitting being implemented.

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.graphics.inkscape.devel/29926
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.graphics.inkscape.devel/30011

https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/171748

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

It should be possible to reuse the Text>Extract extension and create a new text object instead of a list in a dialog.
I'll try to investigate.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Attached is a first version of the extension.

Apart from the options already available in the Extract text extension, you can choose to keep the texts and spans styles, and merge as normal text or as flow text.

Please test!

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Tested on Debian Stable and committed revision 12484.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@JazzyNico - merging text with differently formatted nested tspans loses trailing text (see attached example). Do you want to have this tracked in a separate report?

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

@~suv - Thanks for your test file. Just found out it also affects the Text>Extract extension.
Unfortunately the fix is not obvious at all. Investigations in progress...

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

New versions of Merge text and Extract text committed revision 13177.
Note that I've disabled the flowtext mode in Merge text (unexpected line breaks due to the impossibility to determine if a flowSpan or a flowPara should be used).

[Martin Quinson (mquinson)]

If I try to apply this extension on a file that was extracted from a PDF file, then the block is flipped upside-down.

From what I was told on IRC, that's because of the layer transform, because if you open a PDF file, the content is on a single layer which is scaled and vertically flipped, apparently.

Indeed, if I create a new layer to my document and move the content to their, it works much better.

[Martin Quinson (mquinson)]

It seems that my upside-down issue is due to https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/571373 or something similar. It is thus more generic than this specific extension and can probably be ignored here. Sorry for the noise.