Installation and usage of UniConvertor(Sk1 project): A file conversion tool

3 min readAug 18, 2020

UniConvertor can convert from one file format to other formats. This content will discuss its installation and different file conversions that UniConvertor can handle.

If you want just the the file conversion done, then there are lot of online sites for that. Don’t bother about UniConvertor. If you are a developer and you want a tool for file conversion then continue reading.

UniConvertor 2.0

UniConvertor is an universal graphics translator. It is a command line tool/library which uses SK2 document object model to convert one file format to another.

| It uses Python 2.x not 3.x |

---------------------INPUT FILE FORMATS-----------------------------Supported input vector graphics file formats:
   SK2 - sK1 2.x graphics files
   SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics files
   CDR - CorelDRAW Graphics files
   CMX - CorelDRAW Presentation Exchange files
   CCX - CorelDRAW Compressed Exchange files
   XAR - Xara graphics files
   WMF - Windows Metafile files
   PLT - HPGL cutting plotter files
   SK1 - sK1 0.9.x graphics files
   SK - Sketch/Skencil files
   FIG - XFig files
   CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile filesSupported input palette file formats:
   SKP - sK1 palette files
   GPL - GIMP palette files
   SCRIBUS_PAL (XML) - Scribus palette files
   SOC - LibreOffice palette files
   CPL - CorelDRAW palette files
   COREL_PAL (XML) - CorelDRAW X5-X7 palette files
   ASE - Adobe Swatch Exchange files
   ACO - Adobe Color files
   JCW - Xara color palette filesSupported input image file formats:
   PNG - Portable Network Graphics files
   JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group files
   PSD - Adobe Photoshop files
 XCF - GIMP files
   JPEG2000 - Joint Photographic Experts Group files
   TIFF - Tagged Image File Format files
   GIF - Graphics Interchange Format files
   BMP - Bitmap Picture files
   PCX - PCeXchange files
   PPM - Netpbm Color Image format files
   XBM - X bitmap files
   XPM - X pixmap files
   WebP - Google image format files--------------------OUTPUT FILE FORMATS-----------------------------Supported output vector graphics file formats:
   SK2 - sK1 2.x graphics files
   SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics files
   PLT - HPGL cutting plotter files
   PDF - Portable Document Format files
   CDR - CorelDRAW Graphics files
   CMX - CorelDRAW Presentation Exchange files
   CCX - CorelDRAW Compressed Exchange files
   SK1 - sK1 0.9.x graphics files
   SK - Sketch/Skencil files
   CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile files
   FIG - XFig filesSupported output palette file formats:
   SKP - sK1 palette files
   GPL - GIMP palette files
   SCRIBUS_PAL (XML) - Scribus palette files
   SOC - LibreOffice palette files
   CPL - CorelDRAW palette files
   COREL_PAL (XML) - CorelDRAW X5-X7 palette files
   ASE - Adobe Swatch Exchange files
   ACO - Adobe Color files
   JCW - Xara color palette filesSupported output image file formats:
   PNG - Portable Network Graphics files

Installation

Download the package from here.

If the package is not available for your required OS. Clone the git Repository.

Required dependencies

Install the below dependencies. [sudo apt-get for Linux |curl for mac] OR use package installer of your choice.

libcairo2-dev
liblcms2-dev
libmagickwand-dev
libpango1.0-dev
python-dev
python-cairo-dev

Required Python packages

Install the below packages using pip for Python 2 not Python 3. If pip didn’t work for Windows users, get the binaries and install them from here.

pillow
reportlab
pycairo

Build and install

After installing all dependencies and packages. Open the downloaded file in command line.

python setup-uc2.py build
python setup-uc2.py install

These commands builds and installs the tool.

Usage

On typing uniconvertor in the command line you should get something similar to the below image on successfull installation.

On succesfull installation of uniconvertor on Linux

This is a command line tool for file conversions so don’t expect the UI . Go to the folder or directory in which the file which you want to convert is present.

uniconvertor [INPUT FILE AND ITS FORMAT] [OUTPUT FILE AND ITS FORMAT]

Examples:

uniconvertor test.png test.pdf

This converts png to pdf

uniconvertor test.svg test.png

This converts svg to png

It can do lot more, go explore…

Stay Curious… Stay Creative…