Files

RustFig's own formats are xfig's Fig files (.fig, Fig 3.2 on writing) and .rustfig (a lossless JSON version of the same drawing). RustFig reads Fig 1.3 to 3.2, so old figures open too; warnings appear in the message panel where an old file needed repairs.

• New starts an empty drawing; Open opens a file; Merge adds a file's objects to the current drawing. If the drawing has unsaved changes, RustFig asks first.
• Open with preview... and Merge with preview... (File menu, commands app.open_panel and app.merge_panel; native versions only) show xfig's file panel: the files of the Current Dir that match the Filename Mask (blank-separated patterns with *, ? and [set]; the default is *.fig *.rustfig *.xfig *.fig.gz *.fig.Z *.pdf *.svg *.svgz), the Directories to go into (.. goes up, Home, Show Hidden, Rescan), and the Filename field (Return opens or merges it; Browse... uses the system's own file dialog). Clicking a file previews it on the right: the figure drawn small (special LaTeX text as a quick Unicode approximation, $\lambda/2$ as λ/2, as in the library previews), its size (in the open figure's units), the number of objects and the Figure comments. Open loads the file as File > Open does (asking first about unsaved changes); Merge adds it as one compound, moved by the Figure Offset X and Y, each in Inches, cm or Fig units (file.merge with offset_x, offset_y and unit). Scripts can ask for the list and the preview with file.list_dir and file.preview.
• Open also takes a PDF, SVG or PNG exported with Embed the figure (Export) and opens the figure inside it, under a .fig name next to the file; the same goes for dropping such a file on the window.
• Open and Merge also take any other PDF and make editable Fig objects from one of its pages (plan G5; file.open / file.merge with page, default 1; file.pdf_pages counts the pages). A PDF with several pages first asks which page. The page's top-left corner is the figure's origin. Open names the figure like the PDF with .fig (Save never overwrites the PDF); Merge adds the page as one compound. What the import makes:
  • Lines and shapes: straight paths become polylines and polygons, a rectangle a box, a full axis-aligned ellipse an ellipse; curves are flattened into polylines (one Fig unit of tolerance, so very curved drawings have many points). Stroke width, dashes (dashed or dotted), caps, joins, and stroke and fill colours become Fig attributes; a colour that is not one of Fig's 32 becomes a new user colour (at most 512). A filled shape is filled solid (fill style 20, full saturation of its colour); a shape with holes becomes separate shapes. Pattern and gradient fills are drawn in grey.
  • Text: glyph runs with readable Unicode become text objects in the nearest of Fig's 35 PostScript fonts (Times, Helvetica, Courier and the others by name, bold and italic kept), with size and angle; a word set glyph by glyph is joined with the text next to it. The PDF's own font is not kept, so line breaks and widths may differ a little. Text whose characters cannot be read (Type 3 fonts, unusual encodings) becomes filled outlines.
  • Images become picture objects; the pixels are written as PNG files NAME-pPAGE-N.png next to the PDF (and kept in memory), so the figure saved there shows them.
  • Dropped or approximated: clipping to a convex shape cuts the lines it clips; clipping to a concave shape, transparency, blend modes and soft masks are ignored, with one message each in the message panel (and the warnings of the command). Rotated images take their bounding box. A PDF with more than 200,000 shapes keeps the first 200,000. Encrypted or damaged PDFs give an error and leave the figure as it was.
  • A PDF exported with Embed the figure still opens as the figure inside it; vectors: true imports the page instead. PDFs from other programs come out as drawn: expect many small objects.
  • In the browser the page is always page 1 and the images stay in memory.
  • A PDF already placed as a picture can be turned into objects in place with Import as objects in the picture's Edit panel (plan G6, picture.import_objects; see Pictures).
• Open and Merge also take any other SVG or SVGZ file and make editable Fig objects from it (plan G7; file.open / file.merge, also with file.open_data / file.merge_data in the browser). The picture is drawn at 96 pixels per inch (a width in mm, cm, in or pt is honoured) with its top-left corner as the figure's origin; Open names the figure like the SVG with .fig, Merge adds it as one compound. What the import makes:
  • Lines and shapes: straight paths become polylines and polygons; a rectangle becomes a box, a rectangle with equal round corners an arc-box, a circle or an ellipse (also turned) an ellipse; curves are flattened into polylines (one Fig unit of tolerance). Transforms, use, CSS styles and viewBox are resolved first. Stroke width, dashes, caps, joins, and stroke and fill colours become Fig attributes (new colours as user colours, at most 512); an open path with a fill stays an open polyline, filled as Fig fills those. Gradients are drawn in the average of their stop colours and patterns in their ink colour, solid, with a message each.
  • Text with a simple layout (one style per run, no text on a path) stays text: position, size, angle and left/centre/right alignment (text-anchor) are kept and the font family is mapped to the nearest of Fig's 35 PostScript fonts (Times, Helvetica, Courier and the others by name or serif, sans-serif, monospace; bold and italic kept). Other text (on a path, vertical, mixed styles in one run) becomes filled outlines.
  • Images become picture objects: embedded (data:) images and image files in the SVG's own folder (not elsewhere, no ..); the pixels are written as PNG files NAME-N.png next to the SVG (and kept in memory). An SVG inside an SVG is imported in place.
  • Dropped or approximated: clip paths, masks, filters, opacity, underlines and letter offsets are ignored, with one message each in the message panel (and the warnings of the command); holes in filled shapes become separate shapes; rotated images take their bounding box. A drawing with more than 200,000 shapes keeps the first 200,000, and documents nested more than 256 levels deep are refused. Damaged files give an error and leave the figure as it was.
  • An SVG exported with Embed the figure still opens as the figure inside it; vectors: true imports the drawing instead. Other PNG files give "no embedded figure".
• Save and Save As write the file. When they replace an existing file, the old one is kept as NAME.bak (xfig's write_bak; switch it off with the write_bak preference or -nowrite_bak).
• Open of a name that does not exist yet starts an empty figure with that name (xfig's "new file"); the first Save creates the file. While a compound is open (Compounds) a query asks whether to save the visible part or all.
• Import picture places an image file in the drawing (Text and pictures).
• The most recent files are listed at the end of the File menu and open with their number key.
• Click the file name in the top strip to rename the file.
• Save As into another folder keeps pictures working: relative picture names are rewritten so they still point at the same files (xfig's relative_path); absolute names stay as they are. Undo after the save brings back the old names; save again to rewrite them.
• Digitize... (Alt+Z) saves the points of the selected polylines and splines as text for a plotting program, xfig's Digitize the other way round. Name the files by prefix, starting number and suffix (PREFIX_NNNN.SUFFIX, four digits, as xfig's example line shows); New file for each line writes one numbered file per object, Append to one file adds all lines to a single file (a blank line between lines, added to the file if it exists). A suffix of csv writes comma separated values with an x_fig,y_fig header, any other suffix one x y pair per line. Without calibration the numbers are figure units (1/1200 inch). Tick Calibrate to data units and give two reference points of a scanned plot (position in the figure and the value there) to get the plot's own units, with optional logarithmic axes. Boxes, arcs and pictures are not lines and are skipped. Command file.digitize; native versions only.
• New window... starts a second RustFig, optionally on a file (xfig's New xfig button); native versions only.
• Autorefresh mode (View menu, off at start, kept in the preferences): once a second RustFig looks at the open file and reloads it when another program changed it. If the figure has unsaved edits you are asked first: Reload (your edits are lost) or Keep my version. Saving from RustFig itself never triggers it. Native versions only.
• Print (Meta+P): the Print panel with page preview (Print).

Autosave and recovery

While you work, RustFig writes a recovery copy of any drawing with unsaved changes a few seconds after the last change. If the program stops without saving (a crash, power loss, a killed process), the next start offers to restore each drawing it finds, or discard it. After a normal save or exit the copy is removed. Restore a drawing, check it and save it where you want.

In the browser the copy goes to the browser's local storage (as Fig text, drawings up to 2 MB). Reload the page and RustFig offers to restore it or discard it; saving the drawing or starting a new one removes the copy. Clearing the site's data, or a private window, loses it, so download (File > Save) what matters.

Saved versions. Each time you save, RustFig keeps the file it replaces in the recovery folder. File > Saved versions… lists the last versions of the open file with their times; Restore puts one back as the open drawing (save it to keep it). Global settings > Saved versions kept sets how many (default 5, 0 switches it off, at most 50). Versions are kept only where the recovery folder is available (native app). The commands are file.versions and file.restore_version.

Starting from the command line

Running rustfig FILE.fig opens a file at start. See Automation.

Opening from the file manager (macOS)

Double-clicking a .fig file in Finder, choosing Open With > RustFig, open -a RustFig FILE.fig or dropping a file on the Dock icon opens it, whether RustFig is already running or is started by it. As with File > Open, RustFig asks before it discards unsaved changes; several files sent at once open one after the other.

The web version

RustFig also runs in a browser (WebAssembly). Build it with cargo xtask web (needs trunk: cargo install --locked trunk) and serve the dist/ folder with any static web server, or run cargo xtask web --serve and open http://127.0.0.1:8080. The page shows "Loading RustFig…" until the program has started.

In the browser there are no file paths. File > Open shows the browser's file picker (a Fig file, a PDF or SVG to import, or a PDF, SVG or PNG export with the figure embedded); you can also drop such a file on the window. File > Save and Save As download the figure as a file named after the open one (figure.fig for a new figure; the browser decides the folder), and File > Export downloads each exported file. The menu leaves out what only makes sense on the desktop: Open and Merge with preview, Digitize, Capture Screen, New window, Saved versions and Exit.

File > Merge (Alt+M) shows the same picker and adds the picked figure as one compound, as on the desktop.

Pictures in the browser. Picture mode, Import picture and the picture panel's Browse/Relink show the browser's picker too (a figure's pictures can also be dropped on the picture panel). The browser gives RustFig the picture's bytes, not a place on disk, so RustFig keeps them in memory under the file name for as long as the page stays open, and the figure stores only that name, as always. After you reload the page, or when you open a .fig that names pictures, the pictures are empty boxes with their names until you pick them again (Reread in the picture panel, or Relink: pick the file with the same name). Saving the figure downloads only the .fig; keep the picture files next to it to see them on the desktop. Exports made in the browser (File > Export) do not contain these pictures yet. EPS, PDF and compressed pictures need the desktop version: the browser build reads PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNM and TIFF.

Libraries in the browser. Library mode works with the bundled libraries, which the page serves as files next to the program (see Libraries). The Source line reads "bundled libraries" (there is no folder to choose).

• Capture Screen... (File menu, command app.capture; xfig's Screen Capture button; not in the browser) grabs a window or an area of the screen into a picture. RustFig's window steps aside (it is minimised) while the system's own selector runs: on macOS screencapture (drag an area, press Space to pick a window, Escape cancels; RustFig needs the Screen Recording permission in System Settings > Privacy & Security), on Linux the desktop's Screenshot portal, on Windows the whole screen (no selector). Then a Save dialog asks for the PNG file name (default <figure>_<seconds>.png, as xfig named its captures, next to the figure); the image is written there and added to the drawing as a picture object (like Import Picture...) at the centre of the view, ready to move and resize. Cancelling the selector or the Save dialog adds nothing.