SVG, DXF, EPS or PDF: which file does your machine want?

Use it for: web, Figma, Inkscape, Cricut, Silhouette, anything that lives on a screen or a craft cutter.

SVG is an open web standard, which is its great advantage. It's XML, so it's readable in a text editor, scriptable, styleable with CSS, and animatable. Every browser renders it natively. Every modern design tool opens it.

For craft cutting, SVG is the standard import format. Cricut Design Space and Silhouette Studio both take it.

Where it falls short: most CAD and CAM software won't take it, and many print shops won't accept it. SVG does support real units, millimetres and centimetres among them, through width, height and viewBox. The practical problem is that importers interpret those differently, so the size you intended and the size you get are not always the same. Check after import rather than assuming.

Use it for: laser cutters, CNC routers, plasma tables, waterjet, and CAD workflows.

DXF is AutoCAD's interchange format and has been the common language of machine work for decades. Lightburn, Fusion 360, LibreCAD, and essentially every CAM package read it.

Where it falls short: no colour fills in any useful sense, no gradients, no transparency. DXF describes geometry, not appearance. If you send a DXF expecting your logo's colours to survive, they won't. That's the format doing its job.

The thing to watch: units. A DXF can carry a unit setting, but it isn't guaranteed to be correct or even present. AutoCAD's INSUNITS value can be zero, meaning unitless, and files like that are common. Never assume the physical size travelled with the file. Confirm the overall dimensions in whatever software will open or cut it, before you cut.

Use it for: print, older Illustrator workflows, some sign shops, some embroidery digitizers.

EPS is PostScript in a wrapper, and it's old. Its continued existence is largely about compatibility: a lot of print shops have been asking for EPS for twenty years and see no reason to stop.

If a printer asks for EPS, send EPS. Arguing that PDF is technically more modern wins you nothing.

Where it falls short: PostScript has no native transparency model, so transparency gets flattened on export, which can change how overlapping artwork looks. Colour management is also more awkward than in PDF.

Use it for: print, client proofs, anything that has to look identical everywhere and be openable by anyone.

PDF is the safest format to send a human. It opens on every device, preserves vectors and type, handles colour properly, and nobody has to install anything. Unlike EPS it can carry live transparency, which is one reason modern print workflows prefer it.

It's also the right answer when you're not sure what the recipient can open.

Where it falls short: not an editing format in practice, and not accepted by most CAM software.

Ask before you export. "What format do you need, and at what size?" takes one message and saves a round trip. Shops have preferences, and their preferences are usually about what their specific software handles without complaint.

Keep an editable master. Whatever you deliver, keep the SVG. The delivered file is a copy for a purpose; the master is the thing you go back to when the purpose changes. Converting a flattened EPS back into something editable is worse than re-exporting.

Tracer exports all four from a single upload. SVG is free forever; DXF, EPS and PDF come with Pro. Try it.