Strip SVG outputs from a Literate-generated Jupyter notebook

February 28, 2026

By default, ipynb notebooks generated by Literate.jl contains all available formats in output cells. To save space, one can remove the output formats (e.g., SVG).

Use JSON.jl to read the ipynb file and remove the output data.
Use Base.format_bytes() to show human-readable file size.

using JSON

function strip_svg(nbpath)
    oldfilesize = filesize(nbpath)
    nb = open(JSON.parse, nbpath, "r")
    for cell in nb["cells"]
        !haskey(cell, "outputs") && continue
        for output in cell["outputs"]
            !haskey(output, "data") && continue
            datadict = output["data"]
            if haskey(datadict, "image/png") || haskey(datadict, "image/jpeg")
                delete!(datadict, "text/html")
                delete!(datadict, "image/svg+xml")
            end
        end
    end
    rm(nbpath; force=true)
    write(nbpath, JSON.json(nb, 1))
    @info "Stripped SVG in $(nbpath). The original size is $(Base.format_bytes(oldfilesize)). The new size is $(Base.format_bytes(filesize(nbpath)))."
    return nbpath
end

Last updated on February 28, 2026

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