A Tikz diagram such as

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
  \begin{tikzpicture}
    \path (0,0) node[draw] (A) {A};
    \path (2,0) node[draw] (B) {B};
    \draw (A) -- (B) node[midway,above = 0 em] {via};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

```

when processed with (pdf)LaTeX gives 

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TheHR.png)

while using TeX4ht extracts only the text, giving a conversion to

```
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"  
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">  
<html> 
<head><title></title> 
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> 
<meta name="generator" content="TeX4ht (http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/)"> 
<meta name="originator" content="TeX4ht (http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/)"> 
<!-- html --> 
<meta name="src" content="test.tex"> 
<meta name="date" content="2011-11-17 09:21:00"> 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="test.css"> 
</head><body>
<!--l. 8--><p class="noindent" > ABvia

</body></html> 

```

With more complex Tikz input, TeX4ht turns *parts* of the picture into separate `.png` files. What is the best way to get TeX4ht to convert the entire Tikz environment into a single graphic in the output? I've already tried using the Tikz externaliation library, but this does not compile successfully. (Note: Output as for example an SVG would also be fine - the key thing it to maintain the layout.)

---

For clarity, the result of trying to use externalization with Tikz is:

```
===== 'mode=convert with system call': Invoking 'latex -halt-on-error -interact
ion=batchmode -jobname "test-figure0" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob{test}\input{tes
t}" && dvips -o "test-figure0".ps "test-figure0".dvi' ========

! Package tikz Error: Sorry, the system call 'latex -halt-on-error -interaction
=batchmode -jobname "test-figure0" "\def\tikzexternalrealjob{test}\input{test}"
 && dvips -o "test-figure0".ps "test-figure0".dvi' did NOT result in a usable o
utput file 'test-figure0' (expected one of .epsi:.eps:.ps:). Please verify that
 you have enabled system calls. For pdflatex, this is 'pdflatex -shell-escape'.
 Sometimes it is also named 'write 18' or something like that. Or maybe the com
mand simply failed? Error messages can be found in 'test-figure0.log'. If you c
ontinue now, I'll try to typeset the picture.

See the tikz package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              

l.11 \end{tikzpicture}

? 

```

The diagram is part of a larger page, so the aim to to process the text part as normal but have the Tikz part treated differently (as a picture or as an SVG: whatever is better).