How to Convert SVG to PDF (Online, Inkscape, or in Code)

Convert SVG to PDF online in 4 steps

1. 1

   Add the SVG files

   Open SVG to PDF and drop your files onto Select SVG files. Up to 100 SVGs, 25 MB each. Each card shows the size the SVG declares.

2. 2

   Pick the resolution

   Under SVG resolution (DPI), choose 150, 300 (the default) or 600. Higher means sharper print output and a larger PDF.

3. 3

   Choose the page

   Pick Fit to image to make the page exactly the size the SVG declares, or A4 / Letter to scale it onto a standard sheet. Set Page background to White if the SVG has a transparent background and you want a solid page.

4. 4

   Convert and download

   Click Convert image to PDF and then Download PDF.

Does the PDF stay vector?

No, and the tool says so before you convert. Your browser draws each SVG to a high-resolution image at the DPI you pick, and that image is placed on the page. The result prints sharply, but you can't zoom in forever, select text inside the artwork, or edit the paths in Illustrator afterwards.

Rendering in the browser has a practical upside. Whatever the browser shows, including CSS styles, filters, gradients, masks and embedded fonts, appears in the PDF exactly as you see it on screen. Vector converters sometimes drop or simplify those features.

How the page size is worked out

With Fit to image, the tool reads the SVG's width and height attributes (px, pt, mm, cm, in and other units) or, failing that, its viewBox. The PDF page then has the same physical size: an SVG declared as 210mm × 297mm becomes an A4 page. An SVG that declares no size at all is drawn at 800 × 600 pixels, and the result summary tells you so. Add a width and height to the SVG if you need a specific size.

Browsers can only draw an image of a limited size in one go. If a large SVG at 600 DPI would exceed about 40 megapixels or 16,384 pixels on a side, it is drawn at the largest size possible, and the summary reports the pixel size used.

When an SVG won't convert or looks wrong

• Fonts look different. Fonts the SVG loads from the web, and fonts installed only on the designer's machine, are not available. Convert text to outlines (paths) in your design app before exporting the SVG.
• Linked images are missing. Images the SVG references by URL are not loaded. Embed them in the SVG as data URIs instead.
• "couldn't be rendered" error. The SVG is invalid XML or relies on external files. Open it in a browser tab; if it doesn't display there, it won't convert here.

Vector SVG to PDF: Inkscape, command line, Java and C#

• Inkscape (free desktop app): open the SVG and choose File > Save As, then pick **Portable Document Format (*.pdf). Paths and text stay vector. From the command line in Inkscape 1.x: inkscape input.svg --export-filename=output.pdf**.
• rsvg-convert (librsvg, Linux and macOS): rsvg-convert -f pdf -o output.pdf input.svg writes a vector PDF and is easy to script in a build step.
• Java: Apache Batik parses SVG, and Apache FOP provides a PDFTranscoder that plugs into Batik's transcoder API to write vector PDF.
• C# / .NET: a dependable route is to call rsvg-convert or Inkscape from your code with Process.Start and read the generated PDF. That avoids depending on how complete a pure .NET SVG renderer is.
• Chrome or Edge: open the .svg file in a tab, press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on Mac) and choose Save as PDF. Fine for a single file, with browser margins added.

Frequently asked questions