


Exported SVGs actually are pretty close to web-ready. The output is vastly different than “Save As…”. You wouldn’t expect to be able to edit your vector art after exporting it as a JPG. You are “exporting”, and the implication is that the file that is generated is no longer an Illustrator-friendly and editable file, but a new file specifically for some other purpose. The “Export As” Methodįile > Export > Export As… is very different. Wait, “exported version”? Let’s look at that next. Or if you do save as SVG, you might as well use the “Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities” checkbox and use a naming convention that is clear this is an “original” file, not a web-ready one.

You may just want to keep files as `.ai` until you want to actually export for the web. It’s not entirely clear to us why “Save As…”ing as SVG would be a good idea. Take a look at the CSS-Tricks logo “Save As…”‘d and one exported for the web. The file size of “Save As…” saved Illustrator SVG’s can be several orders of magnitude larger than a really web-ready version. But guides are meaningless in SVG on the web, so you’d be sending useless data if you use SVG saved this way directly on the web. You won’t lose your guides saving as SVG this way, they are preserved just fine. When you “Save As…” from Illustrator as SVG, Illustrators primary concern is that you can open that file again in Illustrator just as you left it.įor example, Illustrator has proprietary features that aren’t a part of SVG. Saving as SVG from Illustrator is fine, but the file is absolutely not ready for direct use on the web.

If you search the web a bit about the differences between saving in different formats from Illustrator, you’ll find plenty of generic information telling you that SVG is for use on THE WORLD WIDE WEB, so if that’s where you intend to use this graphic, that’s the format you should save in.īe careful here. There is even a button in the Save SVG options that come up called “SVG Code…” you can click to have Illustrator show you the code before saving it, presumably for copy-and-paste purposes. You can File > Save As… and choose “SVG” as an option, as an alternative to the default `.ai` file format. Illustrator supports SVG as a first-class file format. TL DR: Exporting, like File > Export > Export As… SVG then optimizing is your best bet for the web. There are several different ways of getting SVG out of Illustrator, each one a bit different. Or for literally any reason at all, you have a file open in Adobe Illustrator that you ultimately want to use on the web as SVG. Or you’ve used Illustrator to finesse some existing graphics. Let’s say you created a lovely vector illustration in Adobe Illustrator.
