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SVG
What is an SVG file?
Vector graphics as XML. Sharp at any size, and the only image format you can edit in a text editor.
What SVG is
SVG is a plain-text format you can open in any editor. It stores shapes and coordinates rather than pixels, so it stays sharp at any size — a logo scaled to a billboard loses nothing. It is used for the web, line art and logos and editing.
The extension is .svg, and the full name is Scalable Vector Graphics. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where SVG came from
W3C published it in 2001. The specification is SVG 1.1.
Age is worth knowing here for one practical reason: the older a format is, the more programs have had time to learn it.
The specification is public
Anyone can implement it without asking permission or paying a licence, which is why it turns up in so many programs and why files written twenty years ago still open.
Nothing is thrown away
SVG stores its content exactly. Saving it again changes nothing, so it can be opened, edited and re-saved as often as you like without accumulating damage — which is what makes it a working format rather than a delivery one.
It can be transparent
SVG carries an alpha channel, so a logo keeps its soft edges over whatever sits behind it instead of arriving in a white box.
It can hold more than one frame
SVG can store an animation rather than a single still. That is worth knowing before converting one: a target that holds one frame keeps the first and drops the rest, usually without saying so.
Colour it can describe
It can work in RGB.
Eight bits per channel is what a screen shows and what nearly every delivery format carries.
It keeps the layers
SVG stores the parts of an image separately rather than flattened together, which is what makes it a working file. Almost every format it converts into flattens them, and the flattening is not reversible — keep the layered original.
What opens SVG
Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator and Figma read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
Every current browser reads it.
That makes it a safe thing to put on a page or attach to a message without wondering what the other end has installed.
It is a working format
SVG is meant to be opened and changed. Keep the file in this format for as long as the work is going on, and export from it whenever a finished copy is needed.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .svg |
|---|---|
| Media type | image/svg+xml |
| Published by | W3C |
| First published | 2001 |
| Specification | SVG 1.1 |
Converting SVG to something else
Converting something else to SVG
Formats worth considering instead of SVG
Where these figures come from
The claims on this page are checkable, and these are the documents that settle them.