svg links work in HTML but not in PDF

[fabern]

Bug description

A badge in SVG format works in our book when rendering as HTML, but not when rendering as PDF.
Since version 1.3 quarto automatically transform SVG images for PDF output.
This however, appears to work only with local files and no links.

Steps to reproduce

With the following *.qmd file:

---
title: "title"
subtitle: "subtitle"
author: "me, & them"
nocite: |
  @*
format:
  pdf:
    toc: true
    toc-depth: 2
    number-sections: true
    number-depth: 2
    use-rsvg-convert: true
    output-file: "test"
    output-ext:  "pdf"
    # resource-path: ["book/figures/"]
    # linkcolor: RSSblue
    # urlcolor: RSSblue
    # include-in-header: 
    #    - "_styles.tex"
editor: source
---

![DOI](https://zenodo.org/badge/569245031.svg) <!-- NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT WORK-->
![DOI](book/figures/zenodo.7740560.svg)        <!-- This works -->

Actual behavior

Error message:
Package svg Error: File `569245031_svg-tex.pdf' is missing.

Expected behavior

No response

Your environment

No response

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.4.555
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.1.11: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.69.5: OK
      Deno version 1.37.2: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.4.555
      Path: /usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: v2025.02
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /home/fabian/.TinyTeX/bin/x86_64-linux
      Version: 2024

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.12.3
      Path: /usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: 5.3.2
      Kernels: python3

(|) Checking Jupyter engine render....Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/share/jupyter/jupyter.py", line 21, in <module>
    from notebook import notebook_execute, RestartKernel
  File "/usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/share/jupyter/notebook.py", line 18, in <module>
    from nbclient import NotebookClient
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'nbclient'
[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[mcanouil]

You are using a pretty old version of Quarto.
Please ensure you have the latest stable version to confirm the issue has been not resolved already?

Side note: if not all the options you've set are not required to reproduce, please don't include them. Only include what's required. This avoid users or us to have to remove them to check the issue does not come from them.
edit: the following seems quite enough, could you confirm on latest Quarto CLI?

---
format: pdf
---

![DOI](https://zenodo.org/badge/569245031.svg) <!-- NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT WORK-->
![DOI](book/figures/zenodo.7740560.svg)        <!-- This works -->

[fabern]

Thanks for your answer, so when trying with the stripped down MWE:

---
format: pdf
---

![DOI](https://zenodo.org/badge/569245031.svg) <!-- NOTE THAT THIS DOES NOT WORK-->
![DOI](book/figures/zenodo.7740560.svg)        <!-- This works -->

I get the same error with Quarto 1.5.57 (included in current RStudio), as well as with in the Terminal with the most recent Quarto 1.6.40:

ERROR: 
compilation failed- error
Package svg Error: File `569245031_svg-tex.pdf' is missing.

See the svg package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              
                                                  
l.160 ...atio]{test_files/mediabag/569245031.svg}}
                                                   

see test.log for more information.

[cscheid]

Thanks for the report.

I'm not sure I want to fix this, because of reproducibility reasons.

An external image in HTML is something we more or less cannot avoid (even though this is what people call "hot linking" and it's sometimes frowned upon by web admins, since you're technically using their servers to host an image for your document). In a .qmd file that is supposed to render to PDFs, though, I believe we can and should avoid it. The presence of such a link means that the document won't necessarily render consistently from one run to another.

I think the appropriate solution here is for us to warn about such images in the PDF format, and encourage users to write either a project script that downloads the assets as needed, or to do the same thing in a filter.

[fabern]

Thanks for the clarifications! These arguments totally make sense to me.

I solved my rendering by using a local copy. Feel free to close this issue when appropriate.

Note: I assume this affects any image format that is hot linked, not only SVGs.

[cscheid]

To make things a bit more complicated, let me note that I recently learned/realized that Quarto does actually fetch .png and .jpg images during a PDF render.

I wish it didn't for the same reasons that I argued above, but the current situation is more fragmented than I thought.