Importing Clip Art and Business Graphics Files

The term “clip art” can have different meanings, depending on who’s being asked. In the context of Scribus “clip art” refers to a special category of technically and artistically less sophisticated vector graphics. Clipart graphics are often being used (and shipped for use) with “office” suites, as well as simple drawing programs. Distribution and use with program suites like Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office or LibreOffice resulted in this category of file formats being ubiqitous.


An imported WMF clip art file in Scribus.

“Business graphics” is another subcategory of vector files. These graphics will be output by programs specialized in visualizing things like business processes, organizational charts, software architecture etc. Well-known programs in this area are Microsoft Viso or its Open Source equivalent Dia.


A multi-page MS Visio file opened in Scribus.

Clip art and business graphics share several characteristics, the most important of which is the absence of CMYK and spot colors, since the file formats don’t support these color models. Both graphics types also use much less sophisticated vector curves than, for instance, AI or SVG. Moreover, most formats listed below can contain vector and bitmap data, and some even text/fonts. Exceptions to this rule are: CVG, SHAPE, and SML.

Supported Formats

Caveats


See also: