title: Output matplotlib figure to SVG with text as text, not curves
body: <p>When I use <code>matplotlib.pyplot.savefig("test.svg", format="svg")</code> to export the figure as SVG, then the resulting SVG file is huge.</p>
  
  <p>This is caused by the fact that there are a lot of text annotations in my figure, and each text ends up as paths in the SVG.</p>
  
  <p>I want my text to end up as text strings in SVG, and not paths. It gets too hard to interpret the output too, if the text strings are exported this way.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to force matplotlib to output text as text, not curves?</p>
  
  <p>Currently, I see these code fragments in my SVG file:   </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;path d=" M9.8125 72.9062 L55.9062 72.9062 L55.9062 64.5938 L19.6719
  64.5938 L19.6719 43.0156 L54.3906 43.0156 L54.3906 34.7188 L19.6719
  34.7188 L19.6719 8.29688 L56.7812 8.29688 L56.7812 0 L9.8125 0 z "
  id="DejaVuSans-45" /&gt;
  </code></pre>