SVG to PDF
Convert vector artwork to PDF without turning it into pixels.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your file is never uploaded, and you can verify that in your browser's network tab. Verify it yourself: open your browser's network tab and watch. You will see one small request asking whether you have tasks left - a tool name and a hash, never the file.
What this does
This translates the SVG's geometry into PDF drawing operations rather than rasterising it. Paths, rectangles, circles, ellipses, polygons, lines, strokes, fills and text all become PDF vectors, so the result stays sharp at whatever size a printer sets it. The parts of SVG that have no PDF equivalent are named in the result banner rather than drawn flat, so you learn what was left out instead of wondering why the artwork looks thin.
Use it when a printer, a form or a colleague asks for a PDF of something you only have as an SVG: a logo for a sign or a banner, a diagram exported from a drawing tool, an icon sheet, or a chart out of a plotting library that writes SVG and nothing else.
How it works
- Drop your .svg files onto this page. Up to 100 at a time, each up to 25 MB.
- Choose the page size. Match makes the page exactly the size of the drawing plus the margin, which is what a print shop usually wants; A4, Letter and A3 centre the artwork on that sheet instead.
- Set the margin if you want whitespace around the drawing. It is 0 by default, because artwork sized to its own bounds is easier to place afterwards.
- Choose the background. Transparent leaves the page unpainted, which is right for something going on top of another design; white paints a white rectangle, which is right for anything printed on its own.
- Press Convert. Each SVG becomes a one-page PDF, and the banner names anything in the file that could not be drawn.
The easy way to build this tool is to rasterise: draw the SVG to a canvas and embed the pixels. It is also the wrong way, because the reason anybody converts SVG to PDF is to keep it sharp at print size, and a 150 dpi picture of a logo defeats the whole exercise. Here the geometry is translated instead, so the drawing scales like the original and a sign printed at two metres is as clean as an icon printed at two centimetres.
What that costs is honesty about the parts of SVG with no PDF counterpart. Filters, masks, clip paths more complicated than a rectangle, gradients, patterns, markers, use references, foreignObject, animation and anything scripted are collected as they are met and reported by name. Naming them is the point: gradient, filter tells you what to change in your drawing program, whereas two unsupported features tells you nothing. Flatten those parts to plain shapes in your editor and convert again.
Text is drawn as real PDF text, so it stays selectable and searchable, but the typeface named in the file is not the one you get. A font-family list is mapped onto the three families available here - anything mentioning mono, courier, consolas or menlo becomes monospace, anything mentioning serif, times, georgia or garamond becomes serif, and everything else becomes sans. Character widths therefore differ from the browser's rendering, so a tightly positioned label can shift. If exact position matters, convert the text to outlines in your drawing program first and it will come across as geometry.
Page size and scale interact in a way worth knowing before you tune either. With Match, the page is the drawing at your chosen scale plus twice the margin, and nothing is resized after that. With a fixed sheet, the drawing is scaled by your percentage and then reduced further if it still does not fit inside the margins - never enlarged past the sheet - and centred on the page. So on A4 a scale above 100 per cent has no effect once the drawing already fills the sheet.
Only images written into the file as data URIs are embedded. A linked image points at a file or a web address, and going out to fetch it would be an outbound request from a tool that promises none, so it is reported as a linked image instead of being retrieved. Each SVG becomes its own single-page PDF; if you want a set of drawings in one document, run Merge PDF on the results.
What this tool cannot do
- Filters, masks, gradients, patterns, markers, use references, foreignObject and animation cannot be drawn. They are named in the result rather than approximated.
- The typeface named in the file is not embedded. Text is set in one of three families and character widths differ, so tightly positioned labels can shift.
- Linked images and other external references are not fetched, because that would be an outbound request. Only data URIs are embedded.
Questions people ask
- Will the PDF still be sharp when it is printed large?
- Yes. The drawing is translated into PDF vector operations rather than rendered to pixels, so there is no resolution in the file to run out of. The same PDF prints cleanly as a business-card logo and as a two-metre banner, which is the entire reason to convert SVG rather than export a PNG.
- The result says something could not be drawn. What does that mean?
- It means the file uses an SVG feature with no PDF equivalent - a filter, a mask, a gradient, a pattern, a complex clip path, a marker, a use reference, foreignObject or an animation. Rather than draw it flat and let you wonder why the artwork looks wrong, the converter names what it skipped. Flatten or expand those elements in your drawing program and convert again.
- What happens to text in my SVG?
- It is drawn as real PDF text, so it stays selectable and searchable in the finished file. The font in the file is not embedded, though: the family name is mapped onto sans, serif or monospace, and the widths differ from what a browser draws. For artwork where a label has to sit exactly where you put it, convert the text to outlines before converting the file.
- What size will the page be?
- With Match, exactly the size of the drawing plus twice the margin, taken from the file's width and height or its viewBox. An SVG that declares neither falls back to 300 by 150 points, which is the format's own default and usually a sign the file was written by hand. Choosing A4, Letter or A3 gives you that sheet with the drawing centred on it.
- Is my artwork uploaded?
- No. The SVG is parsed and drawn into a PDF inside your browser, and nothing about the file is transmitted - which also means a linked image cannot be fetched, since that would be the request this tool refuses to make. The only asset this page loads is the Noto font, from this site's own origin, and only when the drawing contains text.