Specific SVG file cut when inserted into another software

[Inélsòre]

Dear all,

I am a music engraver and I am working on a complex contemporary work which needs a lot of vector drawing for special playing techniques and other non-standard notational elements.

So far, everything has been smooth sailing but today I have stumbled upon something that worked until 5 minutes before and is not working now. 

The graphics are created in Illustrator and then exported as SVG to be placed in the software Avid Sibelius (which supports only SVG as vector format). Sometimes, though, I need to export the SVG from Sibelius or Dorico, two music notation software, clean it in Illustrator, re-export it in up to SVG 1.2 Tiny standard (the maximum that the QT framework appears to support), and re-import it again in Sibelius.

Attached below you will find three files. The "4-b1_3-DB" and "4-b5_7-DB" ones work flawlessly. They have been exported from Steinberg Dorico through a feature called Graphical Slices which lets you draw a rectangle around something and export just that in the desired format. I exported them, opened them in Illustrator, File > Save As, selected SVG, in the settings states 4 as decimal places, 1.2 Tiny as standard, unchecked Responsive and hit Save. In Sibelius, the import has been perfect!

Now, could you please help me understand why the file "4-b32-Vc" is not behaving as well as the other two? Upon opening it in Illustrator I can see the whole staff (5 horizontal lines protruding at each side of the figure) and, even if I fix it to how I want it, I get the error "Transforms are not expanded".

I have tried everything I know to fix this but I am now completely stuck because, when I import this new file into Sibelius, it is missing its bottom portion, and looks like this:

 Any help would be more than appreciated!

PS: of course, I could create a new document in Illustrator, manually draw everything and export but... I believe that if it worked once, it should always work, assuming the material and methods are the same.

Thank you!

[Mike_Gondek]

You probably have some type of transform effect on a vector object. Select the object. Object >> Expand Appearance 

[Inélsòre]

I've done that and still it exports wierdly in such a way that the receiving program places it cut of some part of it.

Any other idea?

PS: it seems that I had Scale Strokes & Effects checked but, upon unchecking that, the improvement is modest.

 

[Monika Gause]

The b32 file has a different structure than the other files.

Those have an additional group that the b32 file does not have.

But that workflow of going back and forth with a file format that Illustrator does not fully support, is not sustainable.

[Inélsòre]

Could you kindly elaborate on this?

What is that the other two files have that b32 does not?

All three originated from the same Dorico file using the same export method. 

What is the file format that Illustrator does not fully support? SVG? 

What is the additional group that is missing from b32? If you can help me find it, perhaps I can fix find a way to fix it.

Thank you!

[Monika Gause]

This is the difference: Your b32 file does not have that element which is called "Layer ...")

And yes, Illustrator does not fully support SVG. There are always things that do not work.

[Inélsòre]

Very interesting.

What would be a better workflow? Export PDF from Dorico, import PDF in Illustrator, clean what I need, and export SVG from there? 

Somehow I made it work now but if I had to tell you what I made differently from before, I would simply not know. It was always the same procedure... Perhaps I expanded something before than doing something else, but I am not sure. 

[Monika Gause]

You are probably in a situation in which you have to just go with what is there.

But you can't rely on it, because it's built on sand.