Same with manipulating every other part of the path, the rest of it just adapts. When all commands are relative, moving a path is as simple as manipulating its initial M command and the rest just adapts, because that’s the whole point of relative commands. I have no idea why some commands were exported as absolute, it seems kind of random.

This happened because even though most commands were exported as relative, several were not and I had not noticed. Usually if I need anything more complicated than just moving them, I’d do it in Illustrator, but even moving them can be painful if they are not all relative (and no, I don’t like introducing pointless transforms for things that should really be in the d attribute).įor example, this was today’s result of trying to move an exported “a” glyph from Raleway Bold by modifying its first M command: Trying to move a path by changing its first M command when not all of its commands are relative.

However, there was always a thing that was a PITA: modifying paths. Some things are easier to do in a GUI, and others are easier to do in code, and I like having the flexibility to pick which one fits my use case best. Not only is it a bit of a meditative experience and it satisfies my obsessive-compulsive tendencies to clean up the code, it has actual practical benefits when you need to make certain changes or introduce animation. Often I will create an initial version in Illustrator, and then export and continue with hand editing.

Inkscape svg output path data absolute