Opening a SVG, and then re-saving it causes severe distortions in the resulting file.

[futuremotion]

I work with the SVG format a lot, creating and modifying icons.

I was resizing a few SVGs today when I noticed this problem. You don't even have to make any changes to the file for this "bug" to corrupt your files. If you re-save the file simply by hitting Ctrl+S, your SVG will very likely have distortions and glitched out paths due to the precision that Illustrator defaults to on every startup of the application.

BE CAREFUL when re-saving a modified SVG using the default File>Save after first opening IL.

I'm pretty sure it's because Illustrator's precision for saving out SVG files has a default of 1 decimal place.

This precision setting is reset to 1 after closing and re-opening Illustrator no matter what settings you have applied in the past.

You can replicate this by opening a svg, nudging it maybe a pixel or two, and then saving it with ctrl+s. Re-open the file and then observe the obvious distortions.

I am now terrified to think about how many SVGs I've warped after making modifications in illustrator and then saving them out without manually changing the decimal places value to something like 5-6 before saving. And for some completely insane reason Illustrator defaults to 1 decimal point precision on every launch, no matter what you've set in the past.

I've attached two SVG files to demonstrate and so anyone reading this can replicate the problem.

"Papirus Emblems Original.svg" is the original SVG.
I then simply nudged it and resaved with ctrl+s.
"Papirus Emblems Distorted Save.svg" is the re-saved SVG (with obvious distortion).

So now you can try this on your own to see what I'm talking about. If you look at the re-saved SVG closely in explorer (if you have a SVG codec installed) or just re-open it in Illustrator you will clearly see the distortion and rounding errors. It's like someone used the "Simplify" command on the image.

Here are some screenshots.

Original File:

 

Re-Saved File (I've added arrows pointing to path distortions):

So a note to anyone working with SVG files - make sure you use "Save As..." first, and then increase the precision to 5-6 decimal points in the resulting dialog that appears:

Notice it's defaulted to 1. Change it to 5-6.

I don't know if I would call this a full-fledged BUG, but Illustrator should CERTAINLY have a place in the preferences to define the default precision for saving out files in the SVG format. It's so easy to corrupt your images right now if you aren't completely aware of this.

I have the following questions:

1. Does anyone here know of a way to set your default preferences for saving SVG files so this doesn't have to be done on every start of the application?
2. Are there any files that I can modify either in the application's install directory (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2025) or user roaming directory (C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 29 Settings\en_US\x64) that will effectively change this default value from 1 to 5 or 6 (or any custom value)?
3. Is this forum (community.adobe.com) the only place to report bugs? I'd like to propose that Adobe does something about this and lets users set their SVG save options perminantly.

This is kind of a large issue, because it's very easy to corrupt existing artwork if you're not careful.

Any feedback or ways to avoid this issue are very welcome.

[Monika Gause]

---

@futuremotion  schrieb:

Any feedback or ways to avoid this issue are very welcome.

---

Most important: Do not use SVG as your work file format.

For all your source files use the native AI file format. That is Illustrator's only native file format

SVG is a one way street. You either export it or import it.

But do not roundtrip it.

[futuremotion]

I don't use SVG as my work file format. But I download and work with a lot of icons (and icon fonts) that come in SVG format only. Many times I want to modify such icons - scaling up to fit the viewport, or changing a color, etc.

With the current behavior, if I modify one of these icons and hit ctrl+s (forgetting to set my precision first), I've done irreparrable harm to the vector. This shouldn't happen. IL should remember SVG save options (such as precision) across restarts.

[Lidia23050746by3o]

This is such a big problem - I work with fonts and some are distorting and others are not.  I work with SVGs all the time.  Is there no fix from Adobe?

[elizabethc54811976]

This has been driving me nuts. Thank you very much for posting about it. You saved me a huge headache, 

[morgand77379222]

This has caused a significant impact to my work flow. I have software that does not accept AI files. I need SVG. Having to reformat from the original AI file everytime I need it is very time consuming and redundant. 

[Anubhav M]

Hello @morgand77379222, @fmotion1,

Could you please share a sample SVG before/after opening in Illustrator, the version of Illustrator installed, and a small screen recording of your entire workflow and the problem, so I can check this with the product team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[futuremotion]

Hello @morgand77379222, @fmotion1,

Could you please share a sample SVG before/after opening in Illustrator, the version of Illustrator installed, and a small screen recording of your entire workflow and the problem, so I can check this with the product team?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

By @Anubhav M

A dev already responded in the uservoice thread I made about this issue, and after trying the beta of Illustrator it seems to be fixed.

[Leemsy]

I almost severely distorted print files right before submitting them to a factory because of this, it was only because I triple checked after saving and noticed some white in places it should not have been, then zoomed in and found all my files were completely ruined. 

This could have cost my company tens of thousands of dollars on plate re-printing if it wasn't caught. This is a massive issue to not be aware of and so easy to accidentally do. I was simply converting my file to pantone, then saved it. I know Bdobe is generally quite awful, but it's sadly industry standard so I end up using it for final file output; this is a completely ridiculous bug to allow into your program. If anything the default should be whatever is the absolute maximum decimal places, then scale back from there if you like. Be better Adobe.

[Monika Gause]

Pantone colors and then saving as an SVG? 

[Leemsy]

yes, it clearly didn't work as I needed an AI file to embed the swatches, I usually don't work in SVG and was sent one. However it remains an issue that I opened the file, changed the colour and clicked save, only to have it distorted to death.

[Monika Gause]

It just doesn't make a lot of sense to have an RGB file with spot swatches in it for printing.

If you need an AI file, why don't you save it as AI instead of SVG? And also: what about the color mode?

[Leemsy]

I was doing it for a company that was not using Adobe, they could not open an Ai file or export one for use. In the end the colour was irrelevant, I sent a swatch palette to the factory as they could use Ai & a plate separated svg with instructions on what swatches to place on what compound path. 

As I said, I do not often work on SVG files, which is why when this issue occurred it was quite unexpected. The solution here worked, but it still defaults to 1 decimal point; which I think is the actual issue to focus on.