Why do SVGs look different after conversion?

You designed a perfect SVG in Illustrator or Figma, but when you drop it into a converter (or open it on another computer), the fonts change, the shadows disappear, or the layout breaks. Here is exactly why that happens and how to fix it.

1. The Missing Font Problem

The most common issue with SVG conversion is typography. When you export an SVG with live text, the file doesn't embed the actual font file (unless specifically configured to do so as base64). It just includes an instruction: <text font-family="Inter">Hello</text>.

When an HTML5 Canvas or browser renders that SVG to convert it to a PNG, it looks for the "Inter" font on the local operating system. If it isn't installed, it falls back to Times New Roman or Arial, completely ruining your design.

How to fix it: Outline your fonts

Before exporting from your design tool, you must convert text to vector paths.

Figma: Select the text layer -> Right Click -> Outline stroke (Shift+Cmd+O)
Illustrator: Select the text -> Type -> Create Outlines (Shift+Cmd+O)

2. Unsupported CSS or SVG Filters

SVG is a massive specification. While every browser supports basic shapes (`<rect>`, `<path>`), advanced SVG filters (`feColorMatrix`, `feBlendMode`) or embedded CSS drop-shadows are notoriously buggy across different rendering engines.

Because this tool uses the browser's native engine to render the SVG before encoding it, a complex shadow that looks perfect in Chrome might render completely black or invisible in Safari.

Rasterizing effects

If your SVG relies heavily on blend modes (Multiply, Overlay) or complex blur filters, it is almost always safer to rasterize those specific layers inside your design tool before exporting, or simply export directly to PNG/WebP from Figma.

3. Missing ViewBox and Dimensions

Sometimes an SVG will render cropped, way too small, or aligned to the top-left corner with massive empty space. This is almost always a `viewBox` issue.

Every robust SVG needs a viewBox attribute (which defines the internal coordinate system) AND standard `width` and `height` attributes (which define the physical dimensions).

HTML

<!-- BAD: Missing dimensions, can render unpredictably -->
<svg viewBox="0 0 100 100"> ... </svg>

<!-- BAD: Missing viewBox, won't scale properly -->
<svg width="100" height="100"> ... </svg>

<!-- GOOD: Bulletproof -->
<svg width="100" height="100" viewBox="0 0 100 100"> ... </svg>

4. External Image References

SVGs can contain other images using the `<image href="...">` tag. If that `href` points to a file on your hard drive (e.g., `file:///Users/steve/image.jpg`) or a URL on the web, it will immediately break when uploaded to a converter or another server due to browser CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) security policies.

The Fix: If your SVG must contain a raster image, make sure your design tool is set to "Embed Images" rather than "Link Images". This will convert the raster graphic into a base64 string directly inside the SVG code.

Related guides

Vector vs Raster Images