Converting between EPS and SVG format

Question

What is the best way to convert from an EPS formatted vector graphic to an SVG formatted graphic using only freely available tools?

Answer 1

You should be able to open the EPS in inkscape and save as SVG from there.

Make sure to save as Plain SVG not inkscape SVG for better comparability. Adobe illustrator can do the same thing, its not free, but the trial version is.

Answer 2

Actually, opening in Inkscape is only possible if you have Ghostscript installed and some conversion script is in your $PATH$ - I could not get this to work on Windows 7. On Linux, it's easier.

Answer 3

You might also want to try Scribus (it does import EPS, it has a solid CMYK support, and I don't know till what extent, but saves as svg) , or, SK1 project. But this last one yet only works in linux. (soon to appear OSX and Windows ports) The difference with Inkscape (for just the conversion) seems to be a better CMYK and other printing features support.

Answer 4

Uniconverter is currently the most convenient option.

It's a command-line tool that shares code with the sK1 Project. You won't have to bother cropping the image in sK1 if you use uniconverter, so it's more automated.

Run it like this:

uniconverter before.eps after.svg

And that's it. I tried it on one EPS, but the SVG was offset improperly, but it may work for you.

Here's a list of alternatives and reasons why they suck:

1. The sK1 Project

   It has the sense of a "page" that you put your drawing on, so after you import an EPS, you have to move it around and manually crop the page.

2. ImageMagick

   For EPS to SVG conversion, ImageMagick does some really stupid bitmap conversion and will render SVG files that are 50mb, when they should be a few kb. It doesn't actually have a real vector conversion algorithm for these formats.

3. InkScape

   Every time I've converted an EPS with InkScape, it's messed up the colours. This is due to an Inkscape bug with importing EPS files.

4. Gimp

   Gimp just does the same stupid bitmap conversion that ImageMagick does.

5. Scribus

   It gets the colours of my EPS file even more wrong than Inkscape, while Preview for Mac can read it just fine.