CDR import - map to what format?

[Thorsten Zachmann]

On Friday, February 10, 2012 13:19:16 Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> so I have been progressing a little bit with the CDR import filter, I know
> more and more about the format. Still not enough to render the first things
> in their place, but e.g. I can now access all raw text, both from graphic
> text objects as block text objects.
> 
> I also turned to stream some SVG as output from the filter, as I could not
> create a Karbon working-memory document directly without many hacks.
> 
> Just, I have found out now that mapping to SVG as a native Karbon format
> does not really work, without losing information. In CDR possible, but not
> Karbon: * multiple pages

One way to work around this limition would be to load each page into a 
different layer. There are already some filters doing that.

> * text block element (non-graphic text)

That is saved as ArtisticTextShape in svg as a short text shows. That means if 
you save it in svg you will not be able to have it as text shape.

> * rectangles have more properties than svg rectangle shape¹

To support that you can use a enhanced path shape (a feature of odf). Not sure 
how much work it is to map the shape from cdr to odf. Or just convert the 
shape to a path shape. That will leave you will a correctly displayed shape 
but it will loose the ability to have special ways of editing

> * objects can be auto-updated clones
>   (not yet seen, just remember this feature)
> 
> ¹ http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/support-for-corel-draw-files-in-
> free-software-gets-another-chance (section "The hard part")
> 
> So what do I do about that? For the rectangles I would have guessed I could
> try to write a custom shape which supports all those properties. The text
> blocks could have been the TextShape, but how would those be loaded from
> SVG? What about the multiple pages?
> 
> Also, seems there is no odg import filter for Karbon. Noone working on
> this? ODG (which seems to also support multiple pages, at least
> LibreOffice draw allows this) not yet supported?

Flow does allow loading multiple page.

The way to go depends on what you think is more needed. If you want to use 
some effects on your shapes then svg might be the better solution. If that 
might not be needed the odg might be the better choice.

Hope that helps,

Thorsten