Clipping will be lost on roundtrip to Tiny?

Report · Feb 01, 2009

I am trying to open a file that I pulled off of wikipedia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg

and I get the following error dialog box.

"Clipping will be lost on roundtrip to Tiny"

In the box it also has a yellow triangle with a black exclamation point in it.
Also it says the following items could not be imported properly.

When you click ok it shows a clipped image to what might be an 8.5 x 11 sheet .

Rather odd. any ideas on why this is happening?

Report · Feb 01, 2009

I am trying to open a file that I pulled off of wikipedia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg

and I get the following error dialog box.

"Clipping will be lost on roundtrip to Tiny"

In the box it also has a yellow triangle with a black exclamation point in it.
Also it says the following items could not be imported properly.

When you click ok it shows a clipped image to what might be an 8.5 x 11 sheet .

Rather odd. any ideas on why this is happening?

Report · Feb 01, 2009

Look up SVG in Illustrator's online help. SVG Tiny is a subset of SVG intended for use with mobile devices such as cell phones. It does not support certain constructs, among them clipping masks. The graphic you are working with contains a clipping mask. The alert is simply telling you that the clipping mask will not survive the trip back to SVG Tiny, if you save it in that format.

JET

Report · Feb 02, 2009

James_Talmage@adobeforums.com wrote:
>Look up SVG in Illustrator's online help. SVG Tiny is a subset of SVG intended
>for use with mobile devices such as cell phones. It does not support certain
>constructs, among them clipping masks. The graphic you are working with
>contains a clipping mask. The alert is simply telling you that the clipping
>mask will not survive the trip back to SVG Tiny, if you save it in that format.
>
>JET

Thanks, That makes sense but how do I remove the clipping mask? I just wanted
to open the file without any clipping.

Report · Feb 02, 2009

Place the file in a new document, rather than just opening the file, then you can remove the mask and preserve the masked areas.

Report · Feb 02, 2009

Thanks that did the trick.

And thanks for not teling me to look at the on-line help. The terminology is
still new to me.

Ben_McMahon@adobeforums.com wrote:
>Place the file in a new document, rather than just opening the file, then you
>can remove the mask and preserve the masked areas.

Report · Apr 17, 2013

You've been reported for abuse. If you are unable, or unwilling, to help keep your nasty remarks to yourself. This is a site for users helping users not users dis'ing users.

It might help you to learn how to answer a question on the Internet.

Report · Mar 19, 2014

I've done some digging and it turns out there is a consequence for some files.

But it should always be possible to import it, even though it gets REALLY hard..

So after this warning, this is for the die-hards.

Import this file: (svg is just xml, which is text, so save this as a text file and rename to xxx.svg):

<svg>

<defs>

</mask>

</defs>

<rect x="1" y="1" width="100" height="100"

style="stroke: none; fill: #0000ff; mask: url(#mask2)"/>

</svg>

If you import this svg, into a graphics program, it should show up as a rectangle masked by a circle.

It does not in illustrator.

So far, I'm just restating the problem.. Now for a possible SOLUTION.

MASKS vs CLIP-PATHS

SVG supports both masking and clipping. As far as I can gather, one is seen as a

rastering filter, done at rendering time, which isn't imported. The other (clipping) is a mathmatical boolean operation, which should be imported.

Easy solution aside:

I found I can open the SVG in inkscape (free download) and save as EPS, the masked bits will become bitmap-fills.

But they will then not be editabe. If you want this you might want to convert the masking

to clip-paths by hand.

HOWEVER!!

If you import a file with clip-paths, illustator gets a little erratic.

I tried clipping in stead of masking the same file as above.

It didn't work in illustrator, but displayed fine in inkscape.

<svg>

<defs>

</clipPath>

</defs>

</svg>

Also you get the message about clippaths not surviving the round trip to tiny on import. (Same as masks)

Then I tried importing a actual path as clipping-path (not a circle, or other primitive)

I got the same message about clipping not surviving, but it DISPLAYS CORRECTLY IN ILLUSTRATOR.

When I looked at it in wireframe mode, both clippath and shape where there.

So the issue seems solved for paths, rather than primitve shapes.

Try and import this (I use Creative Cloud Illustrator version 17 - 32 bit):

<svg>

<defs>

</clipPath>

</defs>

</svg>

This is fortunate, because this is the exact subset of features I need for my project.
So, I figured, if it helps me, it might help somebody else.

I don't think it offers you an easy solution for importing the icons (except via EPS), but it might give you a few more options and a lot more insight into the inner workings of importing SVG in illustrator

and if they are REALLY important, I suggest this work-around:

-Break any image masks into primitive paths in InkScape

-Save as plain svg.

-Open the file in texteditor, rewrite the file to create clip-paths in stead of masks

-import in Illustator.

That seems like a lot of work (and it is) but you could script part of it.

Report · May 24, 2017

A tangent, but here is my workaround for getting generic SVG artwork into Illustrator:

Open SVG file in browser
Select Print
Print to PDF
Open PDF in Illustrator

I lose have to re-key any text that was in the artwork because it doesn't retain fonts this way, but the art comes through fine without any issues with masking and such.

Enjoy!

Report · Dec 02, 2020

OMG thanks a lot.

Clipping will be lost on roundtrip to Tiny?

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