Jupyter Notebook Export Fails with "nbconvert failed: Inkscape svg to pdf conversion failed"

This is currently an open issue it seems like: https://github.com/jupyter/nbconvert/issues/1325

But for me installing the nbconvert 6.0.0 version worked. In that version the code that @Raoul mentions has been modified:

pip install nbconvert==6.0.0 

You also need to have Inkscape installed + make sure you can open inkscape from the terminal. In MacOS i had to do this:

ln -s /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/MacOS/inkscape \
      /usr/local/bin/inkscape

I think where exactly the executable is depends on your version of inkscape. But if you have the latest version, it should be the same. Essentially typing inkscape in the terminal should open inkscape. That's what you want.

The error occurs because export to pdf software isn't installed. Use the following commands to install the missing software. Commands shown are for debian distributions such as Ubuntu.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install inkscape pandoc texlive-xetex texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-generic-recommended

On Mac OSX and Anaconda distribution I was facing the same problem. I discovered that the problem is in the /Applications/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/nbconvert/preprocessors/svg2pdf.py file.

According to https://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Using_the_Command_Line inside this file you have some lines (which I commented out) which are obsolete and need to be replaced with the following.

class SVG2PDFPreprocessor(ConvertFiguresPreprocessor):
    """
    Converts all of the outputs in a notebook from SVG to PDF.
    """

    @default('from_format')
    def _from_format_default(self):
        return 'image/svg+xml'

    @default('to_format')
    def _to_format_default(self):
        return 'application/pdf'

    command = Unicode(
        help="""The command to use for converting SVG to PDF
        
        This string is a template, which will be formatted with the keys
        to_filename and from_filename.
        
        The conversion call must read the SVG from {from_filename},
        and write a PDF to {to_filename}.
        """).tag(config=True)

    # @default('command')
    # def _command_default(self):
    #     return self.inkscape + \
    #            ' --without-gui --export-pdf="{to_filename}" "{from_filename}"'

    @default('command')
    def _command_default(self):
        return self.inkscape + \
               ' --export-type="pdf" "{to_filename}" "{from_filename}"'

Also be sure that you have installed Inkscape:

• I have downloaded and installed the dmg
• I have also Symlink the binary: sudo ln -s /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/MacOS/inkscape /usr/local/bin

And I have changed the path:

raoul@mbp-de-raoul ~ % export PATH=/Applications/anaconda3/bin:$PATH                                          
raoul@mbp-de-raoul ~ % jupyter --version 
jupyter core     : 4.6.1
jupyter-notebook : 6.0.3
qtconsole        : 4.6.0
ipython          : 7.12.0
ipykernel        : 5.1.4
jupyter client   : 5.3.4
jupyter lab      : 1.2.6
nbconvert        : 5.6.1
ipywidgets       : 7.5.1
nbformat         : 5.0.4
traitlets        : 4.3.3

• And restarted the server

Now the export File > Download As > pdf is working.

You can try the following steps

1. pip install --upgrade nbconvert

2. sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-plain-generic

3. pip install altair_saver