SVG Font File Format (.svg)
An SVG font file defines each glyph as an SVG path inside a font element, an XML-based approach the SVG 1.1 specification allowed and that SVG 2 has since removed.
SVG Font at a glance#
| Full name | SVG Font |
|---|---|
| File extension | .svg |
| Category | Fonts |
| Developer | World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) |
| First released | 2003 |
| MIME types | image/svg+xml |
| Compression | Uncompressed |
| Specification | SVG 1.1 - Fonts |
| FileFlip support | FileFlip reads and writes this format |
What a .svg file can hold#
These are the things a SVG Font file either supports or does not, and they are what decides whether a conversion keeps everything or quietly drops something.
| Embedded metadata | Yes |
|---|---|
| Human readable | Yes |
Strengths and limitations of SVG Font#
What SVG Font does well
- Human-readable and editable as plain XML text, unlike the binary tables inside TrueType and OpenType
- A glyph is just an SVG path, so vector tools that already draw paths can produce one directly
- Still renders in Safari, one of the few browsers that never dropped support
Where SVG Font falls short
- Chrome removed support in version 38 and Opera followed shortly after, so most people's browsers can't render one at all
- Firefox and Edge never implemented SVG fonts in the first place
- SVG 2 removed the font-related elements outright, recommending WOFF as the replacement
- No hinting or OpenType layout features, so the complex typography TTF or OTF supports isn't possible
There's little current reason to choose SVG fonts for web text; icon font systems built years ago are the main place they still appear.
Convert an SVG font to WOFF2 for anything meant to render as text in a current browser, since SVG font support is largely gone.
How to open a .svg file#
A .svg file opens in the programs below, grouped by the platform you are on. If you would rather not install anything, FileFlip converts SVG Font into a format your machine already opens, and it does it in the browser tab rather than on a server.
| Platform | Programs that open it |
|---|---|
| Windows | FontForge, VS Code |
| macOS | FontForge, Safari |
| Linux | FontForge, VS Code |
| Web | FileFlip |
SVG Font questions people ask#
Do browsers still support SVG fonts?
Barely. Chrome removed support in version 38 back in 2014 and Opera followed soon after, while Firefox and Edge never implemented SVG fonts at all. Safari is the one major browser that still renders them, which makes SVG fonts unreliable for any site that needs to work everywhere.
Why were SVG fonts deprecated?
SVG 2 removed the font-specific elements, like glyph and font, that SVG 1.1 had defined, pointing to WOFF as the format browsers should use for web fonts instead. WOFF and WOFF2 compress better and reuse the existing TrueType and OpenType glyph model, which made a separate SVG-based font format redundant.
What's the difference between an SVG font and a regular SVG icon set?
An SVG font defines glyphs inside a font element so text can reference them by character, the same way a browser looks up a letter in TTF or WOFF. A regular SVG icon set is just a collection of separate SVG files or symbol elements, each inserted directly rather than looked up as a character, which is why icon systems moved to plain SVG sprites once SVG font support started disappearing from browsers.
Converting SVG Font files#
Convert SVG Font to another format
Convert another format to SVG Font
Every conversion runs inside your browser. The file is read from your disk, the work happens on your own machine, and nothing is uploaded. How FileFlip works names the engine behind each family and how to verify that for yourself.