I'm in the process of publishing a book through CreateSpace. The book contains several black and white vector images that I created through Inkscape. I am currently inserting these images into a Word document after exporting them from Inkscape in png format. Finally, before uploading to CreateSpace, the document is converted to pdf.

The only problem is that CreateSpace insists on CMYK images (and moreover I want pure K), and the images in the pdf created through this process are chock-a-block full of CMY colour.

I don't have much hair left now. Any advice on how I can convert the Inkscape svg's to CMYK (with only K), in a format that Word will import (BMP, EMF, EMZ, EPS, FPix, FPX, GIF, JPEG, JFIF, JPEG-2000, PDF, PICT, PCT, PNG, PNTG, PSD, QTIF, SGI, TGA, TPIC, TIFF, TIF, WMF, WMZ), and the best way of doing this without losing too much resolution?

I had a similar issue with respect to CMYK (again for publishing) about two years back. The issue is CMYK is barely supported in inkscape or GIMP. What I ended up doing eventually was as follows -

1/ Export a high resolution image as png from inkscape.
---> This is easy. Export Bitmap (CTRL+SHIFT+E)

2/ Download an appropriate CMYK color profile.
---> I remember this being easy too.

3/ Use imagemagick to convert the image from RGB to CMYK.
---> This worked very well. Unfortunately, I do not remember anything beyong using the imagemagick command convert. But, this link might at the minimum get you started on the conversion process.


At the end of the day, I was able to convert RGB to CMYK successfully using the steps above. Hope you will also be able to. Good luck.

2 members found this post helpful.

i use Gmic , it has replaced imagemagick for almost all of my needs

convert rgb png image to a 32 bit float 4 band ckmy
screenshot ( 32 bit images are fun to upload to image sites) using Nip2
http://imgbox.com/a827ryC0

also converts svg

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks to both of you. I'll give these a whirl.