Re: Topodroid SVG into Adobe Illustrator

[Marco Corvi]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2026, 05:29 Matt Oliphant and Nancy Pistole <unic...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Marco,

I am having some issues when importing an SVG into Adobe Illustrator (CS4 on a Mac, and CS6 on Windows). In TDX versions 6.3 and 6.4,

exactly which versions ?

the drawings were imported with the stroke and fill reversed (all in black). I downloaded both 6.5.5-37 and 6.5.10-37 — now all the drawings have no stroke and no fill (the centerline and grid seem to be okay). I can highlight everything and set the stroke, but then it is all monochrome, without the nice red, white, and green that I used for sketching. My older SVGs (from last year) still import correctly, but I don’t know what TDX version I used for those.

the td version is written in the svg file

I can send you more details if you need them (models of phone and tablet, Android versions, etc), but this seems to be a universal problem (several of my colleagues  in the US are having the same results).

amdroid model and os are not relevant.

Something must have changed in these later versions of Topodroid.

changes from v. 6.4.8 that might be relevant:

- issue 172: dropped namespace ns.adobe.com/AdobeIllustrator/10

- added fill="none" for lines

- reduced point size and label size

- issue 173: dropped layer="yes"

- fixed nul character is texts

- used transform instead of matrix for point

all changes are in the class drawingsvgbase

i do not have illustrator and i do not use svg.

therefore i do not know what to change to fix the problem.

please take an old svg that works, compare with a new svg, find the differences, make the changes to the new svg until it works as expected and send me the original new svg and the new svg that works.

then i apply the changes to topodroid.

the mail is sent to the topodroid group in case someone can help.

Nancy

[Marco Corvi]

after some inquiry it appears that topodroid exports svg with css style .class and CS4 (2008) / CS6 (2012) do not properly handle that.

can you try with a recent version of adobe illustrator ?

(and report whether svg export works)

thanks.

[Igor Teleshman]

I am working with Illustrator 2022.
The SVG export is correct.

вторник, 8 сентября 2026 г. в 10:42:30 UTC+3, marco...@gmail.com:

[Garry Petrie]

That's odd, Adobe plays a major role in the SVG ecosystem as a creator and editor of software like Illustrator. I suspect they have the correct implementation of the standard. 

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[Marco Corvi]

thanks for the feedback.

areas have fill and stroke.

lines have stroke, but fill="none".

lines can have markers.

points are symbols.

labels are treated separately.

station are triangles and names.

Balazs Holl has worked on the issue and found that the problem lies in the way old CS handle the class style.

class is a nice feature because it let you change the presentation of all items of a type (class) uniformly by editing the class.

apparently CS has problems with class names that include the underscore, '_', character (a bug ?).

( aside: the underscore in the class name is the Therion convention for the names of the item types. )

he suggest to replace underscore with dash, '-'.

as a matter of fact it could be replaced with any character accepted by CS, or just dropped.

however, this is not a complete solution because there are problems, in CS4, with markers at the end of the lines (the line direction segment, and arrows)

i will wait until there is a solution to the issue

(which is not to go back to a line-by-line style

and lose the benefit of class).

you may play editing svg export and try to find a syntax that uses class and works for CS4 with marker (or an alternative element)

On Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 01:52 Matt Oliphant and Nancy Pistole <unic...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Marco,

I spoke with another caver who uses a recent version of Adobe Illustrator (Creative Cloud, paid subscription). He said the SVGs work fine in his program. I also looked at the SVGs (old and new) in an SVG reader program on my computer (Mac), and they all look okay. So it does look like it is a problem with the legacy models of Adobe Illustrator (the CS series). However, many cavers still use these older programs for drafting, because the newer versions are paid subscriptions and expensive.

I imported an SVG that was produced by the latest version of TDX (6.5.10-37), and determined what was different from previous SVGs that imported properly. I attached a screenshot of how Adobe Illustrator separates the layers.

The primary layer is called <Group>. Under that, there are sublayers for each scrap. Each scrap is divided into sublayers for areas and lines (and presumably points, but I rarely use those). The areas and lines are further sublayered into specific areas and lines. 

When I select the ‘areas water’ sublayer, the fill is on (with the color black), and there is no stroke. In older TDX, the fill would be blue, and the stroke would be on (in black).

When I select the ‘lines border’ sublayer, there is no fill or stroke. In older TDX, the stroke would be green (and fill would be off).

When I select the ‘lines chimney’ sublayer, there is no fill or stroke. In older TDX, the stroke would be purple.

When I select the ‘lines user’ sublayer, there is no fill or stroke. In older TDX, the stroke would be white (or light grey).

When I select the ‘lines wall’ sublayer, there is no fill or stroke. In older TDX, the stroke would be red.

This is the same for all the scrap sublayers.

However, the centerline sublayers (stations* and legs) are fine, and so are the grid sublayers. As far as I can tell, it is only a problem with the ’stroke’ settings for areas and lines (and possibly points, but points don’t import well into Adobe Illustrator, so few people use them for this purpose).

* As you can see in the screenshot, the stations now include triangles. The triangles were not in the old SVGs. I like them, because they help when I am trying to line up stations from multiple plots.

If it would help, I can send you the SVGs that I used to figure this out.

Nancy

[Balambér Hakapesz]

Hello!

It seems that many people are affected by the correct use of Adobe Illustrator SVG in TopoDroid.
Unfortunately, I do not have complete knowledge and testing opportunities. Therefore, what I am writing now is just a suggestion:
- The Inkscape and Illustrator SVG output options (which so far only meant the default ppi resolution) should be expanded with old and new Illustrator options.
- The new one would not change (we have already received some confirmation of this from people who use the new Illustrator, but some more tests would not hurt).
- The old Illustrator setting (CS4, CS??) would replace the "_" signs and disable the line-direction switching
- ? The Inkscape setting could be expanded with SVG functions that only Inkscape can handle. Although this means that SVG compatibility is broken. Inkscape solves this by encoding the same object in multiple ways. This is quite wasteful.

We need more samples and tests from people who have access to various paid SVG programs.

Balázs Holl

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[Marco Corvi]

Balazs asked an AI about SVG compliance in Illustrator

and i tried that as well, for both Illustrator and Inkscape.

The short answer is that both are not SVG-2 fully compliant

Inkscape is a bit better, but even Inkscape fails short even of SVG 1.1

( although not fully finalized, the current version is SVG-2).

topodroid export does not need most of the features of SVG.

there are however features that would convey semantic info of the sketch 

in the exported svg, that are not "understood" by illustrator.

for these there are workarounds in v. 6.5.19 

 

On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 5:11 AM Matt Oliphant and Nancy Pistole <unic...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

Here is where assistance is needed:
- Handling of SVG files across different software versions, ideally tested with paid applications.

I only have Illustrator CS4 (Mac) and CS6 (Windows). I don’t have access to the paid version, but I'm happy to help test anything. Let me know.

please test 6.5.19 

warning: the default target program is Inkscape

- Insights into user habits: understanding the workflow used to create the final map. TopoDroid’s output formats can be optimized based on this information.

For my workflow: I save the SVG with ‘Group elements in layers by type’ checked. It gets imported into Illustrator as one layer, divided into many sublayers (I have a template already set up in Illustrator for the way I like to organize layers). I expand the SVG layer, then go through the sublayers, modifying and/or moving most of them. For example, I move the grid to its own layer, same with stations and legs. I open up each of the ‘lines’ sublayers, modify the stroke and fill to the appropriate values, then move those into the layers on my template. (With the newest version of TDX, the stroke and fill are set to ’none’, so I have to change those.) Same with the areas.

 

check if this problem is still present and/or other issues arise

  

This gives me more control to turn on and off layers when I want them. When I am drafting the map, I only use the SVG as a reference (a.k.a. ‘pencil draft’ before digital). I trace over the drawing with my own set of symbols and brush strokes. I find this is faster than trying to incorporate the actual paths from the SVG. 

Most of my friends who use TDX and Illustrator also just use the SVG as a template, and trace over the drawing in separate layers.

 

over-drawing is fine. i suppose the underlying sketch can be hidden. 

[Marco Corvi]

thanks.

you might test svg export not just the way you use it (that is your "workflow"), but also with other sketching habits and settings and export options.

On Fri, Sep 18, 2026, 07:17 Matt Oliphant and Nancy Pistole <unic...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Marco,

I just tried v.6.5.19 and the SVG export works in my old Adobe Illustrator! Thank you!

Nancy