The first artboard of an Illustrator document written out as editable SVG paths, no dpi involved.
Both files describe shapes. Only the SVG opens in a browser, a design tool or a cutting program without owning Illustrator.
An Illustrator document is a private format wrapped around vector shapes. Read as SVG, those shapes are written out in a format every browser, editor and cutter understands, so the artwork can be used without the program that made it.
An SVG has no resolution: the same paths draw a 20 mm favicon and a two-metre banner with the crispest edge the device can render. That is why a converted logo can go straight onto a shopfront, a roller banner or a laser cutter.
A flat logo as SVG is often a few kilobytes, small enough to inline in a web page or attach to an email. There is no 300 dpi picture hidden inside it, so it stays small however large it is displayed.
The first artboard as paths, with one honest exception for pictures placed inside it.
Logos, lettering, diagrams and illustration strokes arrive as SVG paths with their own fills and strokes. They can be recoloured, moved, split apart or deleted in any vector editor, which is the difference between a working file and a picture of one.
An Illustrator document can hold many artboards. One request converts the first, which is the one shown when the document opens, and the page is cropped to its edges so there is no margin around the drawing. Other artboards need their own conversion.
Text is converted to shapes, so it stays exactly as designed and never depends on a font being installed. The trade is familiar from print work: the letters can no longer be selected, searched or retyped in the SVG.
A bitmap that was placed in the document travels inside the SVG at its own resolution. There is no geometry to recover from a photograph, so enlarging that part still softens while everything around it stays sharp.
Illustrator can save a document in two shapes, and only one of them carries a page other programs can read.
With that option ticked, Illustrator embeds a full PDF page inside the .ai file and appends its own editable data. That page is what gets read here, and the vector content of it is what becomes the SVG. Illustrator ticks the box by default, so most documents since the mid-2000s are fine.
Untick it and the file becomes Illustrator-only: the readable part is a page that says the document has no PDF content, so a conversion has nothing to draw. Re-save with Create PDF Compatible File switched on, or use File → Export → Export As and pick SVG — which is the format you wanted anyway.
Documents saved by Illustrator 8 or earlier are PostScript programs rather than PDF containers. They are read as PostScript here and convert normally, which makes even a very old archive usable.
The SVG itself ignores it, but pictures placed in the document do not.
Coordinates, not dots: a path is stored as a curve between two points, so 72, 150 and 300 dpi all give the same SVG. The resolution control stays on screen because this is the same converter as the picture pages, but it changes nothing in a vector answer.
If the artboard contains a photograph or a rasterised effect, that part keeps the detail it was saved with. A low-resolution placement stays soft inside a sharp frame, and no dpi setting here can add information the picture never had.
For a listing image, a slide or a proof, AI to PNG renders the same artboard at 72, 150 or 300 dpi, and SVG to PNG does it to an SVG you already have in pixels.
What a vector conversion can and cannot reach inside the document.
A document with six variations returns the first one. In Illustrator, File → Export → Export As writes one PDF per artboard, and each of those converts here on its own — the quickest way to get every version out without rearranging the document.
Each conversion has a wall-clock limit. A document with hundreds of thousands of paths, a large placed image or many effects can pass it and stop with a message instead of a truncated SVG. Exporting the single artboard you need first keeps the run short.
Three steps, no account and no software to install.
Drop it on the box, click to browse, or paste it with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac). One file per run, up to 25 MB. The upload is accepted even when the browser sends it as a generic binary, and a PDF or an EPS converts here too.
SVG is already selected and a vector page has no dpi, so there is nothing to tune. The artboard decides the page and its edges are cropped to the drawing.
The file keeps the name of your document with a .svg extension. Open it in an editor to check the paths, place it in a page or feed it to a cutter.
Checks that save a round trip with the person who sent the file.
Artwork hidden outside the artboard, unused symbols and stray clipping masks all travel with the file. Delete what is not needed in Illustrator first: the SVG gets smaller, the cutter has less to read, and nobody finds a surprise object off the canvas.
Open the file in the browser and in the design or cutting tool you plan to use. Each program reads gradients, strokes and clipping in its own way, and a glance now is cheaper than a failed job later.
Some print workflows still want PostScript: SVG to EPS writes the paths out as an EPS cropped to the artwork. If a PDF arrived instead of an AI file, PDF to PNG renders its pages as pictures.
Yes. No account, no payment, no watermark and no limit on how many documents you convert. A short rate limit is the only restriction, and it is there so that one visitor cannot occupy the converter while everybody else waits.
Yes — the artwork arrives as paths with their own fills and strokes, so it can be recoloured, reshaped or split apart in any vector editor. Live text is turned into outlines on the way, so letters stay pixel-perfect in shape but can no longer be selected or retyped.
No. The document is read on the server and the SVG opens in any browser, so nothing has to be installed. AI files saved with PDF compatibility are read through that embedded page, and documents from version 8 or earlier are read as PostScript, which they are.
One file per run, up to 25 MB, and the first artboard is the one converted. A file saved without Create PDF Compatible File has no page to read and comes back empty, and a document with an extreme number of paths can reach the time limit and stop with a message.
Files are processed on our server and not stored. The document is read once, the SVG is returned to your browser, and nothing is kept afterwards, so the download is the only copy that leaves the conversion.
