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mattcadbf
Participant
July 24, 2026
Question

Saving SVG files in Adobe Illustrator 2026 cause artboard/viewBox to disappear resulting in a cropped image.

  • July 24, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 4 views

Saving SVG files in Adobe Illustrator 2026 cause artboard/viewBox to disappear resulting in a cropped image.

I have found that I can work around this by doing a Save As and checking the Use Artboards option but future saves drop them and the view box gets lost the next time I try to save. Is this a bug and if intentional behavior, is there some way to force Illustrator to honor my artboards with a setting toggle somewhere?

Example SVG file that will lose its viewBox on save:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><circle cx="256" cy="256" r="128"/></svg>
Open, slightly move circle, save, viewBox is lost, re-opening shows it truncated.

    1 reply

    Anubhav M
    Community Manager
    Anubhav MCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    July 24, 2026

    Hello @mattcadbf

    Thanks for reaching out. Would you mind sharing more details, like the version of the OS/Illustrator installed, a sample AI/SVG file, and screenshots of the export settings used along with the output, so we can assist you further?

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Anubhav

    M
    mattcadbfAuthor
    Participant
    July 24, 2026

    Sure:

    OS - macOS Tahoe 26.5.2

    Adobe Illustrator 2026 - 30.6

    I’m not clear what export settings you are referring to so I’ll explain the exact steps below on what I’m seeing, otherwise please elaborate what you’d like me to share.

    Steps to reproduce:

    1. Drag the attached file (same source as noted above) to the Illustrator icon in the dock to edit it.
    2. You should see a black circle inside a larger white square
    3. Drag the circle a little bit down and to the right (just some movement to slightly edit the image)
    4. Press Command+S to save your change
    5. Close the image
    6. Repeat step 1 to re-open the image

    Expected:

    • The image looks just like what it did when I saved it (black circle is inside of a large white square with plenty of empty space between the edges of the circle and the edges of the square.

    Actual:

    • The image is cropped such that the edges of the circle now touch the edges of the much smaller white square
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