TAGS
The best option is SVG 1.1 as it’s the version recommended by the W3C. was created a long time ago to support the first generation of mobile devices such as Blackberry phones andPDAs. Today, it doesn’t make sense to export SVG Tiny files if you target smartphones.
By default, Illustrator selects Adobe CEF, which is the best font format for the Adobe SVG Viewer. Web designers must select the type “SVG”, to enable the font format defined by the W3C.
With SVG, you can save a subset of glyphs within the document. This will, of course, increase the size of your SVG file, but it’s a nice way to embed a font. If you don’t plan to dynamically change the text content of your SVG, you can select “Only glyphs used”. Illustrator will detect and embed the characters used in your document.
The third option, “Convert to outline”, can be useful if you don’t want to automatically convert your text content into SVG paths. This can be used for an icon with a few characters such as “Home”, or “Info”.
The file size difference between a subset of glyphs and converted fonts to SVG paths is not significant.
However, if you use complex fonts (such as handwriting fonts), it will dramatically increase the size of your SVG file. Also, if you scale down to much a font converted to outlined paths, you may lose some visual fidelity (but that’s just in theory, I cannot detect a clear difference in modern browsers).
EDIT:
Some SVG experts told me that SVG fonts are not fully supported by Firefox and IE, and they don’t plan to support it. So, if you don’t want to convert your fonts to outline, you should use web fonts. “Convert to outline” can blow up your SVG files and make them less accessible. That’s why web fonts are a better option. If you are looking for a set of free web font, check the , which is a free subset of .
in which I’ve embedded a classic font (Adobe Clean), and a more complex one (ChalkDust).
If you plan to add details, or simplify very specific areas of your work, you can rely on the Pencil tool. Pressing ALT will activate the Smooth tool and enable the most precise way to reduce the number of points on a specific curve.
Don’t select the “Optimize for Adobe SVG Viewer” option. SVG is supported by default in all browsers, without any Adobe plugin.
“Include Slicing data” : Well… Slicing?.. No thank you.
“Include XMP” : If you’re working in a super-organized environment, with automated workflows by the NASA, or if you’re insanely maniac, you can add some XML metadata.
If your SVG artwork contains a lot of text, this option can dramatically reduce the size of your exported SVG. In this sample, I’ll just write ‘Adobe’ and export it without checking this option:
Illustrator CC generated two <tspan> elements. One for the capital “A”, and another one for “dobe”. It’s because the Myriad-Roman applies a specific kerning for the uppercase letters.
Text is problematic in SVG because it’s hard to have a perfect translation from CoolType to SVG without selecting particular glyphs. Adding <tspan> elements does the trick, but you’ll lose the semantic meaning.
If you check the box, Illustrator CC will ignore the kerning positions and create one tspan:
It reduces the size of the SVG and if you plan to dynamically modify the text thanks to JavaScript code, it will be easier.
I invite you to select the option “Style Elements” which has been designed for the web. The other ones are more for pure XML processing (with XSLT for instance). If you don’t plan to modify your SVG code after export, select the default option “Presentation Attributes”.
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