A simple shell script to automatically remove problematic textLength attributes from .svg files. This resolves rendering issues during post-processing in graphic editors like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator etc.

Bioinformaticians, data scientists, and researchers often generate plots and visualizations using tools like R (ggplot2), Python (matplotlib/seaborn), or other scientific software. These figures are commonly saved in .svg format to allow for precise and scalable editing in tools such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, or Figma.

However, many software packages that export .svg files embed a textLength attribute within the <text> elements. When opened in a graphics editor, this can stretch or distort the text, leading to unreadable or oddly spaced characters.

This script provides a quick fix by avoiding all textLength attributes from .svg files before final editing.

• Scans a directory for all .svg files
• Replaces every occurrence of textLength with XtextLength (an invalid attribute that gets ignored by editors)
• Saves the changes in-place, allowing for clean opening in vector editors

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/humphreyaddy/fix_svg_textLength.git
   cd fix-svg-textLength

2. Edit the path to where the .svg file(s) are located

3. Run in you bash terminal

4. Enjoy!