format conversion

SVG to PNG

An SVG is a set of drawing instructions; a PNG is a grid of pixels. This is the one conversion here that changes what kind of thing the file is, and it is the one that cannot be undone.

What actually changes

  • The size comes from your file, not from this page

    A vector has no pixels to keep, so it is rasterised at the width and height the SVG itself declares. There is no size box to fill in, and a file with no declared size has nothing for the converter to read one from.

    Source src/lib/convert.worker.ts — the SVG branch of the master decode

  • Transparency survives

    PNG carries an alpha channel, and most vector artwork is drawn on nothing rather than on white. What was see-through in the SVG is see-through in the PNG.

    Source The converter’s own format notes — src/copy/en/convert.ts

  • It stops scaling

    The SVG could be drawn at any size a browser asked for. Once it is a PNG, every size above the one it was written at is an enlargement, and this repo has no operation that adds detail that was not there.

    Source src/lib/convert.worker.ts — “a vector has no pixels to keep”

  • Flat artwork and photographs want opposite PNG settings

    Measured here on this site’s own icons: PNG’s per-row adaptive filtering shrank a photograph by 25.8% and grew a flat vector mark by 5%, with six of seven sizes coming out larger. There is no single PNG setting that wins for both, which is why the favicon generator encodes each file twice and ships the smaller one.

    Source docs/v2/24 — PNG encoding, measured 2026-08-20

The short answer

Take the PNG when something downstream will not read a vector. Keep the SVG: it is still the only copy that can be drawn at a size you have not thought of yet.

Convert it here

The converter takes your file, writes it as PNG, JPEG and WebP at the same pixel size, and shows you what each one weighs — measured on your file rather than on an average. It runs on the page using WebAssembly; the image never leaves your device.

Open the image converter

The other conversions

Every pair this tool can actually do. There are nine because it reads four formats and writes three, and a format cannot be converted to itself.

This page carries 4 facts and a source for each one. It is one of nine, generated from the same list the converter reads — so a page cannot exist here for a format the file picker would refuse.