Convert Inkscape artwork to CMYK using Scribus
EDIT: J. Cruz brought a blog post on CMYK in Inkscape to attention in the comments. And while Inkscape itself now officially supports CMYK (and has been supporting this feature for several generations now), the process of integrating it into a CMYK work flow still remains more or less the same as the one outlined in this article. I feel, though, that we’re really close making this article obsolete. :)
Inkscape is a great open-source vector drawing app. It has lots of cool features, and sometimes does things better than any commercial package. Its main drawback has always been (and continues to be) the absence of CMYK mode. For any serious production work, CMYK mode is a must. Luckily, Scribus can import Inkscape artwork, and you can convert the colors to CMYK there. Let me show you how to do it. It’s not difficult, and it gets the job done rather well.
Recently, I did some work at home for the company that I work for. Since I use Linux exclusively, I used the open-source tools for the task. The artwork above is a simple black icon created in Inkscape. The icon was to be imported into Adobe InDesign at a later stage, so I wanted to create 100% black artwork.
I saved the icon and then created a new Scribus document with the same size. Next went to File menu, Import, then selected Get vector file.
You will notice that the imported artwork is a little bit bigger than it should be. In the screenshot below, a 12mm artwork is imported as 15.004mm. It’s not a big problem however, but it’s a good idea to include a rectangle with a known size in your original Inkscape file whenever you plan to import it into Scribus later.
Fixing this glitch is not a bit problem. Use the properties palette (if it’s not there, press F2 to open it) to correct the size and positioning. I put my artwork into the upper left corner, and sized it down to the correct 12mm size.
I then opened the Edit menu and selected Colors. This gives me the document’s color palette including the colors imported from the SVG artwork.
You can see the two ‘FromSVG’ colors. It seems that the artwork includes a color that I didn’t really intend it to (perhaps a hairline outline that I missed), but that’s not important. I edited the black color swatch using the Edit button, which opens the color editor. It’s also worth noting that RGB swatches have the RGB vertical bar icons next to them, whereas CMYK swatches have the CMYK checkerboard icon.
In the color swatch editor, I changed the Color model to CMYK. That was it, because Scribus automatically converted RGB black to 100% black. I saved the swatch and closed the color palette.
Next I needed to get rid of the red outline. When you import a SVG file into Scribus, the individual parts of the artwork are all grouped into a single object. To manipulate individual objects, you first need to ungroup them. That’s exactly what I did with a couple of pushes on Ctrl+Shift+G.
Using the Color tab in the properties palette, I removed all the offending outlines. Finally, I exported the PDF. To do that, I simply clicked on the PDF icon.
Once the export dialog is opened, I went over to the Color tab and selected Printer from the Output intended for drop-down in the General section. This makes sure that the resulting PDF is a CMYK file. There are other settings there, and it’s a good idea to go through them at least once to get some ideas of the options you have.
After hitting Save, I had the PDF ready for use.
As convoluted as it may seem, this is currently the only way to get press-ready artwork that you created in Inkscape. Of course, some shops will also accept a PNG file you export from Inkscape, but if you are using Inkscape as part of your DTP workflow, it’s not a bad idea to use this method to get precise output.
If you liked this post, I also have an overview of Gimp’s color management for DTP.
