Saturday, August 28, 2010

GIMP can now export PDF's!

Hello!

After some work, I'm proud to say that GIMP can now export PDF's using my new cairo-based pdf export plugin!
Go check it out - it's in the main source repository in the master branch :D

Comments and feedback are more than welcome - you have until 2.8 to affect how this plugin will work and which features it will have. Currently, it has:

  • Support for multiple pages using multiple images using File->Create->Multiple-Paged PDF...
  • Support for exporting text as text!!
  • Support for resolutions

And it has the following optimizaiton options:

  • Replace rectangles of a single color with a vector shape. This can dramatically decrease the file size (think of all the single-colored background layers that are now saved as vector instead as bitmap)
  • Remove the alpha channel of layers where it's unused, to decrease the file size
  • Discard layers which are not visible or are100% transparent
  • Can either apply layer masks (to decrease the file size) or keep them (better quality pdf, bigger file size)

Happy Gimping!

Edit: Updated the post with details on the plugin

3 comments:

  1. Many Many Thanks! Now there is just one little thing missing: XCF import into Scribus. But that is not your piece of cake...

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  2. @Andreas_P

    Why would you want importing XCF into Scribus when there already is support for multilayered TIFFs with clipping paths in Scribus, including blending modes for layers? :)

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  3. It sounds really great and just what I need but I can't find the place to download. Can you give a more exact location or preferably a link? shinn.stephen@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete