AI, EPS, SVG or PDF: Which Vector File to Send

AI, EPS, SVG or PDF: Which Vector File to Send

Send a PDF for viewing and printing, an SVG for the web, and keep the AI file for other designers. A modern AI file is a PDF with Illustrator's private data inside it, EPS is a PostScript-era format that Adobe now says "isn't suitable for modern workflows" and that cannot carry live transparency, and SVG is XML meant for screens. The details below decide which one a given recipient can actually open.

A format's contents decide what it can carry and what a conversion throws away, which is why "can you send it in another format" is rarely a small request: the printer cannot open the logo, the client has no Illustrator, the web developer wants anything but an EPS. The answers below come from Adobe's Illustrator help, the Inkscape project, the W3C's SVG standard and the ISO PDF standard, plus two small checks of our own. We did not run Illustrator, Affinity or Inkscape, so every statement about an application is from its own documentation.

The four formats at a glance

Each cell has a source further down. Two of them deserve a sentence now because they surprise people.

A modern AI file is a PDF. The Inkscape project explains it in a 2023 blog post: "Modern (after 2000) AI files are actually PDF files, so they can be displayed with any PDF viewer. And when Inkscape opens an .ai file, it just calls the PDF importer." The part that is not PDF is described in the same post: the information PDF cannot represent, such as "text layouting metadata, path effects, filters, mesh gradient arrangements, layers and much more", is embedded as a compressed data stream inside the PDF. That is the actual Illustrator data, and a PDF viewer ignores it.

EPS is the old one. Adobe's own Illustrator help, on the page about saving artwork, puts a note above the EPS instructions: "The EPS file format, commonly used in the past, isn't suitable for modern workflows." The format still opens in many places, which is why it survives in file requests, but Adobe's own advice is to look elsewhere.

Specifications and help pages behind the table

Everything cited was open on October 23, 2026.

• Adobe, Save and export artwork in Illustrator: native formats, Create PDF Compatible File, EPS options and the EPS note, SVG options.
• Inkscape, March - AI Extension 2023, posted April 5, 2023; the Inkscape for Adobe Illustrator users wiki page and the Inkscape FAQ.
• W3C, SVG 2 (Candidate Recommendation Snapshot, October 6, 2026) and SVG 1.1 Second Edition (Recommendation, August 16, 2011).
• Adobe, PDF 32000-1:2008 (ISO 32000-1), the transparent imaging model and Annex K.
• Affinity, import and export notes on its graphic design and page layout pages.
• Our checks: the EPS header comes from an Inkscape test-suite file read on GitLab; the live-versus-outlined PDFs were generated with pdf-lib and read with pdftotext.
• Unconfirmed and therefore omitted: behaviour of any application we did not run, whether a given AI file has a PDF layer, how current Inkscape imports AI files, cutting and embroidery software requirements, and any claim about web converters.

Inside the files

SVG: text you can read

The W3C describes SVG 2, currently a Candidate Recommendation Snapshot dated October 6, 2026, as "a language based on XML for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics." The version most tools implement, SVG 1.1 (Second Edition, a W3C Recommendation of August 16, 2011), calls it "a modularized language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML." Because it is XML, you can open an SVG in a text editor and read shapes, colours and coordinates. It supports transparency natively, and a browser draws it with no plug-in.

PDF: a page description with a long specification

ISO 32000-1 (published by Adobe as PDF 32000-1:2008, which is PDF 1.7) is the standard we used. It states a fact that matters for print and for EPS: "PDF 1.3 and earlier versions use an opaque imaging model in which each graphics object is painted in sequence, completely obscuring any previous marks it may overlay on the page. PDF 1.4 introduced a transparent imaging model in which objects can be less than fully opaque." So from version 1.4 onward a PDF can hold true transparency, and any workflow that needs it depends on a PDF at version 1.4 or later.

EPS: PostScript with a boundary box

An EPS file is a PostScript program that obeys extra conventions so another program can place it in a layout. A real example makes this concrete. We downloaded an EPS file exported by Inkscape's test suite (via the cairo graphics library, version 1.18.0), 16,059 bytes long, and looked at its first lines:

• The first line is %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0, which declares an Encapsulated PostScript file.
• Next come the creator, the language level (3) and a line giving the artwork's rectangle, %%BoundingBox: 0 1 173 91, followed by the PostScript instructions that draw it and, at the end, showpage.

The bounding box is the point of the format: it tells the layout program how big the artwork is. The rest is a program for a PostScript interpreter. Adobe's help adds the constraint relevant to designers: "Because EPS files are based on the PostScript language, they can contain both vector and bitmap graphics." The preview image, which layout programs show on screen, is a separate option (the Format menu in the EPS Options dialog), and Adobe says to choose an opaque background "if the EPS document will be used in a Microsoft Office application."

AI: a PDF wrapper around Illustrator data

Adobe's help describes the saving options in Illustrator. The one that matters for sharing is "Create PDF Compatible File: Saves a PDF representation of the document in the Illustrator file. Select this option if you want the Illustrator file to be compatible with other Adobe apps." The same page lists the option being switched off among the cases where Illustrator's background save does not work. So the PDF layer is optional in what Illustrator writes. Forum posts about Inkscape report that an AI file saved without it can only be opened by Illustrator. We found that in search results, not in Inkscape's documentation, and we have no Illustrator to test it with, so treat it as a risk: open the file and see.

One more date matters. Inkscape's blog says modern AI files are those "after 2000", its wiki says it opens "Adobe's AI (since version 9)" files, and its FAQ lists "Adobe Illustrator 8.0 and below (*.ai)" among formats that need the UniConvertor module. We read those as the same boundary: an AI file from the 1990s is a different animal from a current one.

Transparency: why EPS is the weak one

If you place a drop shadow in a logo and save it as EPS, something has to happen to the shadow, because PostScript cannot hold it. The PDF standard states the reason: "Because the PostScript language does not support the transparent imaging model, a conforming reader desiring to print on a PostScript output device needs to have some means for converting the appearance of a document that uses transparency to a purely opaque description."

Annex K of the standard goes on to say what that conversion is and what it costs: "Converting the contents of a page from transparent to opaque form entails some combination of shape decomposition and prerendering to flatten the stack of transparent objects on the page... The conversion to opaque form is irreversible, since all information about how the transparency effects were produced is lost."

Adobe's help handles it in Illustrator terms: "If your artwork contains transparency (including overprints) and you require high-resolution output, select Window, Flattener Preview to preview the effects of flattening." The practical rule follows. A flat, single-colour logo with no effects survives EPS unchanged. A logo with shadows, glows, opacity or blend modes is changed on the way into EPS, and the copy a printer opens is the flattened one, with the editable transparency gone. When you must supply EPS, keep the AI file as your master.

Text and fonts in each format

Live text is only as good as the fonts available where the file opens. Each format handles this differently, and Adobe's option names show the choices.

• AI. "Embed permitted fonts for file preview: Embeds the fonts used in the document so that your collaborators can preview them without installation." The PDF-compatibility option "also embeds fonts, but may not embed all the permitted fonts."
• EPS. "Embed Fonts (For Other Applications): Embeds all fonts that contain appropriate permissions from the font vendor. Embedding fonts ensures that the original font is displayed and printed if the file is placed into another application, such as Adobe InDesign. However, if the file is opened in Illustrator on a computer that does not have the font installed, the font will be faux or substituted." Adobe explains the substitution as preventing illegal use of the embedded font. Embedding also "increases the size of the saved file."
• SVG. Adobe's SVG Options include Font Type with "Convert To Outlines" and Font Subsetting, where subsets embed only the characters used. Choosing none for subsetting is for files where you "can rely on the necessary fonts being installed."
• PDF. Fonts can be embedded when the font's licence allows it, which is a licensing question, not only a technical one; our Adobe Fonts guide and commercial font licensing guide cover when embedding is allowed.

A check we ran: live text versus outlined text

To see the outline trade-off directly, we built two small PDFs with a script. Both show the words "Acorn & Oak" beside a semi-transparent rectangle. In the first the words are live text in Helvetica; in the second they are converted to vector paths using the outlines of TeX Gyre Heros. We then ran pdftotext, the text-extraction tool from the Poppler utilities, on each.

The outlined file looks identical on screen and returns nothing to a text extractor. That is the whole trade: outlines remove font dependency, make the lettering uneditable, and make it invisible to search, copy and screen readers. For a logo handed to a printer that is usually what you want. For a document that people must search or read aloud, it is not. Our rich black guide and PDF/X guide show where outlines fit in a print hand-off.

What each conversion loses

The table collects documented losses, with the source for each.

A rule of thumb follows: save as AI until the artwork is finished, then export copies for each recipient. Adobe's help gives the same advice for non-native formats: "it is recommended that you save artwork in AI format until you finish creating it, and then export the artwork to the desired format."

Opening an AI file without Illustrator

Start with how the file was saved, because that decides which routes can work.

What to ask for in a message to the sender: "Please save a copy as PDF (with the PDF-compatible option on) and an SVG, with text outlined." That message works because it names the two formats any tool can read and the setting that makes the PDF layer exist.

Opening EPS

Inkscape's FAQ says it "natively supports opening or importing many different formats, such as SVG, SVGZ (gzipped SVG), PDF, EPS, and AI" and, for Windows, gives a procedure that installs Ghostscript so Inkscape can convert EPS. So EPS is openable for free, but not out of the box on Windows. If a printer sends you an EPS and you have no tool, ask for a PDF.

Tell what a file really is in ten seconds

A file extension is a label, not a guarantee. People rename files, and some tools save PDF content under an AI name, so the quickest honest check is the first line of the file. Open it in a plain text editor that does not try to render it, and read the start.

The same habit catches the other common confusion, the version of PDF. The number after %PDF- is the file version. A file that begins %PDF-1.3 cannot hold live transparency by the standard's own account, while one that begins %PDF-1.4 or later can. A printer who asks for "PDF 1.3" is asking for a flattened file, which is the reasoning behind PDF/X-1a that we cover in the PDF/X guide.

A worked hand-off: one logo, five recipients

The logo in this example has a flat red mark, black lettering set in an open-licence font, and a soft shadow behind the mark. The inputs are invented; the reasoning follows the facts above.

1. The master. Save the AI file with PDF compatibility on, fonts embedded as permitted, and keep it. This is the only copy that holds the shadow as an editable effect.
2. The printer. Export a PDF in the preset the printer names. The shadow is live transparency in a PDF 1.4 or later file, or flattened if the printer demands PDF/X-1a. Lettering is outlined or embedded. The printer never needs the AI file.
3. The web developer. Export an SVG with text converted to outlines, and check in a browser that the shadow rendered. Adobe's help warns that some effect stacks make the SVG output "consist of a raster object", so a shadow can turn a vector logo into a bitmap in the SVG. The simplest fix is to ship a version of the logo without the shadow for the web.
4. The client's assistant, who uses Word. A PNG on a transparent background, which is the easiest thing to place in an office document. If they insist on a vector, an EPS with an opaque preview, accepting that the shadow is flattened. Adobe notes the opaque preview is the one to choose "if the EPS document will be used in a Microsoft Office application."
5. A freelance designer taking over. The AI master and a PDF. They will open the AI in Illustrator, or open the PDF layer in another tool if they do not have it.

Five recipients, four different files from one master, and none of the conversions touches the master. The cost of doing this once is about ten minutes. The cost of not doing it is the third round of "can you resend it in a format I can open".

An export checklist for Illustrator users

1. Finish and save the AI master. Tick Create PDF Compatible File so other tools can read it.
2. For the PDF copy, choose the preset your printer names, and keep fonts embedded or outlined. For editing handoffs, Adobe says to select Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities.
3. For the SVG copy, set Font Type to Convert To Outlines unless the text must stay live, and look at the result in a browser. Remember that mesh objects are rasterised.
4. For an EPS, check Flattener Preview, choose the preview format that suits the recipient (opaque background for Microsoft Office), and embed fonts or outline them.
5. Open every export in a tool other than Illustrator before sending.
6. Name files so the format and use are obvious, and keep the AI master with the exports.

Export three copies and test them

Take one logo and export the three copies in the checklist, then open each outside Illustrator. When the same artwork is going into a brand package, the brand style guide article covers how to name and document the versions you hand over.

What to send to whom

This table is our recommendation, built on the facts above.

For web delivery specifics see our image formats guide, the SVG optimization guide and the favicon guide. For colour in print files, see CMYK versus RGB.

Vector format questions

What is an AI file?

It is Adobe Illustrator's native format. Files from around the year 2000 onward are based on PDF, according to the Inkscape project; when saved with the PDF-compatible option, other programs can read the PDF layer, while Illustrator's own data sits in a compressed stream inside it.

Can I open an AI file without Illustrator?

Often, yes. A PDF viewer or Inkscape can open files that contain a PDF layer, and Affinity lists AI among the formats it imports. If the file was saved without the PDF layer, you need the sender to re-export.

What is the difference between EPS and SVG?

EPS is a PostScript-based format made for print workflows, with no live transparency. SVG is XML for screens, with transparency, scalable shapes and browser support.

Is EPS still used?

Yes, because many tools accept it, but Adobe's help says it "isn't suitable for modern workflows". Prefer PDF for print hand-off.

Which vector format is best for printing?

PDF, usually in a PDF/X flavour. Ask the printer for their specification, since they set the requirement.

Which is best for a website logo?

SVG, with text outlined for a logo, plus a PNG fallback if needed.

Does converting a file to PDF make it editable?

A PDF that holds live paths and text can be opened in vector editors, but Illustrator-only features may need the editing-capabilities option. Outlined text will not be editable as text.

Is a PDF a vector format?

It can hold vector artwork, raster images or both. A PDF made from vector artwork stays sharp at any size.

Mistakes that cost time

1. Sending an AI file to a recipient who has no Adobe software and no PDF layer to open.
2. Choosing EPS for artwork with transparency and expecting the shadow to stay editable.
3. Delivering live text in an SVG logo and discovering the font is missing on the recipient's machine.
4. Outlining all text in a document that people need to search or read.
5. Trusting a web converter with an unreleased logo.
6. Assuming "vector" means "editable". A PDF with outlined text is vector and not editable in the way the designer intended.