Hi Guys, new here, but the thread here has drawn me in. I have seen tons of questions regarding text and file size in general. As to text, it is a horrible 'object' in svg for gts. With that said: GTS does not recognize many fonts, it MUST be outlined, and generally is very inefficient. I use inkscape (but heavily edit text code to keep file sizes small, because 90% of their files contain absolutely useless nonsense that blows up files sizes
) My recommendation to be able to uses a lot of text with very small files sized using inkscape:
Use text that is close to the look you like. Convert the text object to path. (Path>Object to Path). Remove the 60% of useless nodes that are not needed for the shape of the letters LOL. (Often I just create paths over a text object and use it simply as a reference and then delete the text completely) Very important, remove stroke from the path, and use just a fill color. (The stroke definition takes up a LOT of text, file size, in the actual svg file which is just text). Then edit the paths to alter text if you'd like to change its look. Perhaps the most important relating to file size is the placement of nodes in the editor. If you work in a large scale pixel wise in the editor, it is very easy to snap each node to an exact pixel location, which make the file size MUCH smaller, sometimes just 500% smaller than leaving nodes at fractional positions between pixels. I usually work in at LEAST 1024x1024 pixel resolution in the editor so this is very easy without destroying the sharpness or precision of curves. 4K resolution is best to work in because it will be pixel perfect at the highest resolution that most people will ever see the decal. So in brief, to make the most efficient svg file for text:
Type text. (either trace this with your own paths and delete original text object or...) Convert to path. Remove stroke and just use fill color. Remove ALL unnecessary nodes (which will be a large number LOL) Place each node (you can use snapping for simplicity or type in exact coordinates in top bar of editor) on an exact pixel location. Finally, "clean up document" in the file drop down, view zoom to 1:1, save as plain svg.
Of course there are ways to make the file much smaller than even that as inkscape still places a lot of useless definitions and references in the svg text file. And all of the "whitespace" in the svg file uses up a LOT of memory as well. If anyone would like to see the actual difference between optimized svg and an inkscape "plain" svg. I can put up a sample...But in general all editors have waaaaay too much text in their files and waaay too much whitespace which is completely unnecessary for a decal. (We are not coding svg in a text editor, no reason for it to be "readable" or "coder friendly" at all LOL)
In general about size of svg files though. All editors by default place many kilobytes of useless defs, attr, styles, and software dependent nonsense in their files and many kb of "blank whitespace". A person who wants to make efficient svgs needs to remove all of this nonsense, use a workspace defined by pixels and not any other measurement, keep all nodes at exact pixel locations, and work at a high enough resolution so that that placement is simple and does not effect image quality. Any person, can make svgs much smaller than an online "optimizer" such as svgomg with a little working knowledge. (Oh, and native objects blow too
Make everything with paths....)
