Bug - Web Clipper not preserving inline .svg images from Wikipedia

[JW3 12]

I'm a big fan of clipping Wikipedia pages. I have found recently that some embedded images are not rendered in Evernote after clipping. Often these are inline equations in .svg format. See excerpt screen shots of the same content, from the page Tropical Cyclone, and from my clipped page in EN.

I am using Windows 10, and this happens in ALL browsers on this platform. Ironically, my iPhone can clip this page perfectly after I request the desktop version. What gives?!

[JW3 12]

For those looking for a cure specifically for Wikipedia inline .svg images, logging into your account preferences for WP allows you to cater your math symbol appearance to .png files. Granted, this is not a vector format but it may provide a suitable solution. 

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  There's history.. 

 

[tjhokietiger 9]

I noticed the same thing.  This really needs to be fixed...  I clip a lot of math-related pages and they are basically useless piles of SVG links...  PLEASE, please, please EN folks, fix this issue.  I don't understand why the clipper doesn't work right, since the rendering in the instant version of the Simplified Article actually looks perfect... but the clip in EN is useless. 

 

 

[gazumped 11,652]

Don't know whether it can be 'fixed' - there's not many picture editors that can read SVG files at all,  so maybe there's some question of copyright or technical issues with the mixture of unusual layouts in formulae.  This is one of those "if it was easy they would have done it by now" things - find a workaround (see the link) if you need it now!

[tjhokietiger 9]

Here's my issue:  I use the web clipper to clip a wikipedia page with math stuff on it.  Web Clipper shows me the Simplified Article (see 1st figure).  It looks perfectly fine.  Then I look at the article inside the EN desktop app and I get 2nd figure - *****.  I look at it in the EN web app and also ***** (figure 3).  If they can properly render it in the Web Clipper, why can't they do it in Evernote proper?  It just seems like they are already doing it correctly, so why is it so hard???

[tjhokietiger 9]

For some reason I'm limited to 500KB so can't load up Figures 2 & 3 - What nonsense!!! I'm paying $65 per year for this???

 

[tjhokietiger 9]

OMG, I had to shrink the figures in photoshop and super compress them.  ... suffice it to say that they look like *****, ok.  The equations become gibberish equations with little squares with links to figures.  If the Web Clipper can render it properly, why can't EN save it that way?  In fact, it's very misleading because the thing it shows you that its going to save is NOT what it ACTUALLY saves!!  

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  Welcome to the real world.  Most of the time stuff works,  sometimes it doesn't.  If it doesn't work and you're a paying subscriber, you can open a support ticket.  If not there's a Twitter address @EvernoteHelps, and this forum where another user may have found a fix.  Or you can post in the feedback section where others can vote on your feature request.  If its popular enough,  the feature may be fast-tracked into a coming release.

Meantime if something wasn't working,  it's going to keep on not working unless there's a workaround.

The pages you're having issue with include SVG files to display the formulae.  If you search "What can open SVG files?" You get - 

Quote

The file is developed as a standard format for displaying vector graphics on the web. The SVG format is an open standard developed under the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), with Adobe playing a major role. SVG images can be created and exported from Adobe Creative Suite programs, such as Illustrator and GoLive.

 

Nothing there about copying and pasting into other applications,  or converting into Evernote note code.

 

Evernote may well be trying to find a way to do something about this - they tend not to share work in progress.  In the meantime to copy pages including these files,  look at screengrabs,  the page 'print' option,  or (another paying customer option) sending the page by email.

 

Also meantime there are exactly two votes (see top left of page) to ask Evernote to do something about this.  If you want something better than screen grabs,  please vote.

[tjhokietiger 9]

I have found a workaround that is not ideal, but it gets me the equations correctly.  I am using the Print to Evernote (on a Mac) capability, which generates a PDF and automatically sends it to EN.  The upside is that equations are rendered properly and the formatting is preserved from most sites I've used it on so far.  First down side is that the result is a PDF, so not as convenient for editing or annotating and I don't know how well the search function works with PDFs generated thusly.  Another downside is that you cannot select the Notebook or set tags for the clip, as you can with Web Clipper, so I have to go into EN and do that as a second "cleanup" step.  Last downside is that you don't really have anyway to know if the Web Clipper is going to work on a site or not, because the preview rendering that Web Clipper does is inaccurate.  Sometimes it works and sometimes not.  I know WC doesn't work with Wikipedia, so there it's simple, but some other sites have also resulted in incorrect renderings.  I don't know until I review each entry in EN.  

[gazumped 11,652]

It hasn't specifically been said in this thread before,  though it has been said elsewhere -  Clipper is a great tool,  but very occasionally it can't cope with every random coding trick that site providers come up with.  Sometimes it's necessary to look for alternatives. 

So you can also consider -

1. Looking for a 'mobile' version of the page - they're laid out more simply so can sometimes be easier and less cluttered to clip
2. Checking for a 'print' option on the page - developers often make it easier to get the content onto one page - sometimes also allowing you to see/ print multiple pages in one display. 
3. Using the browser options to print to a file and attaching that to a note - in extreme cases,  maybe printing to paper and physically scanning the result back in (or using a device camera) to add it to a note
4. Using the various websites that will copy/  PDF/  print other web pages - especially useful for very l-o-n-g web pages sometimes
5. In Wikipedia's case reading the instructions. See below.  I got a perfectly usable PDF out of a Wikpedia page in about one second flat and Evernote sucked it into a note for me.  (I tried the print option too,  but Wikipedia can't even print their own page in full when it has formulae).

 

[tjhokietiger 9]

Hi JW3, 

Thanks, your idea worked!!  I changed the math to PNG and now when I capture the page, the equations are embedded!  You solved my problem! 

I owe you a beer!!

TJ

[spikarder 0]

Here is the workaround to clip MathJax into EN:

 

[JW3 12]

On 3/20/2017 at 10:27 AM, tjhokietiger said:

Hi JW3, 

Thanks, your idea worked!!  I changed the math to PNG and now when I capture the page, the equations are embedded!  You solved my problem! 

I owe you a beer!!

TJ

Model Especial. ;-)