What happens when you convert EPUB to SVG
- The EPUB is laid out as a book with A4 pages by Calibre, the widely used open-source e-book manager, on our conversion server, with its chapters, headings, images and table of contents, and each page is then drawn by MuPDF as an SVG drawing.
- A one-page result gives a single SVG; a longer one comes back as a ZIP file with one SVG per page, named page-01.svg, page-02.svg and so on. Only the first 100 pages are converted, so a whole novel gives its first 100 pages.
- E-books have no fixed pages, so the page breaks are made for A4: they will not match the pages of a printed edition, or what an e-reader shows.
- Text, lines and shapes stay vectors in the SVG, so they are sharp at any zoom, and pictures are embedded in it. Letters are drawn as outlines, so they look exactly right without the fonts but can no longer be edited or searched as text.
- Books bought from a store usually carry DRM, which no honest converter removes. DRM-free books convert normally.
- This conversion runs on our server: the file is uploaded, converted, and deleted together with the result as soon as the result has been sent back to you. Nothing is kept. Files up to 25 MB are accepted.
How to convert EPUB to SVG online
- Press "Choose EPUB files" and select one or more files, or drag them onto the box. Files up to 25 MB each can be converted.
- There are no settings to choose: the converter keeps everything the target format can hold.
- Press "Convert to SVG". The file is uploaded to our conversion server, converted in a few seconds, and deleted together with the result as soon as the result is sent back.
- Save each SVG with its download button. Our server has already deleted both your EPUB and the SVG by then.
Why convert EPUB to SVG?
EPUB files usually come from e-books from stores other than Amazon and free e-book libraries. People convert them to SVG to place a page of a book in a design or on a web page as a vector image that stays sharp at any size.
How to convert EPUB to SVG on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android
On Windows
Open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, drag your EPUB files in from File Explorer, and press Convert. Each SVG is saved to your Downloads folder.
On a Mac
Safari, Chrome and Firefox all work. Drag the EPUB files from Finder onto the drop zone and the SVG files land in Downloads.
On iPhone and iPad
Open the page in Safari and tap Choose EPUB files. You can pick from Photos or from the Files app. The converted SVG appears in Files, in the Downloads folder; to put it in your photo library, open it there, tap Share and choose Save Image.
On Android
Open the page in Chrome, tap Choose EPUB files and pick them from Files or your gallery. The SVG is saved to the Download folder, where any file manager can find it.
Best settings for EPUB to SVG
There are no settings: the book is laid out on A4 pages, and at most the first 100 pages are converted.
To read the book, keep the EPUB: it reflows to fit any screen, which page images cannot. To convert a particular chapter, export the book to PDF first and pick the pages you need.
EPUB vs SVG: the differences
| EPUB | SVG | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Electronic publication | Scalable Vector Graphics |
| Type | document | image |
| Created by | the International Digital Publishing Forum | the World Wide Web Consortium |
| First released | 2007 | 2001 |
| Compression | Lossless | Lossless |
| Transparency | n/a | Yes |
| Animation | n/a | Yes |
| Vector or raster | n/a | Vector |
| Colour | n/a | any colour, described as shapes rather than pixels |
| What it holds | chapters as XHTML pages, with images and a table of contents | any colour, described as shapes rather than pixels |
| In a browser | opens in Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo and most e-reader apps; a Kindle needs it sent through Send to Kindle | renders natively in every browser |
| Common uses | e-books from stores other than Amazon and free e-book libraries | logos, icons, charts and illustrations on the web |
| MIME type | application/epub+zip | image/svg+xml |
About EPUB and SVG files
What is an EPUB file?
An EPUB is a ZIP archive of web pages, one per chapter, plus a file that lists their order. That is why its text can be extracted with ordinary web tools.
What is an SVG file?
SVG describes shapes as text instructions, so it stays sharp at any size and a simple logo can be under 5 KB. Turning it into pixels fixes it at one resolution, so choose the output size before converting.
EPUB to SVG not working? Common problems
- "Files up to 25 MB can be converted." Server conversions have a size limit. Compress the images inside the file, or split it, and try again.
- "The conversion took too long and was stopped." Very long or complex files can pass the 90 second limit. Split the file and convert the parts.
- "This file is not really in EPUB format." The converter checks every file before it runs anything, so a file of another format renamed to .epub is refused. Choose the page for its real format.
Convert EPUB to SVG from the command line
Calibre and MuPDF do the same on your own computer: the first command lays the book out as a PDF, the second writes one drawing per page.
ebook-convert input.epub book.pdf --paper-size a4
mutool draw -F svg -o page-%d.svg book.pdfConverting on your own computer keeps the file entirely local, which is worth it for very large or very sensitive documents. For everything else, the converter on this page does it without installing anything.
EPUB to SVG converter FAQ
Will I lose quality converting EPUB to SVG?
Text, lines and shapes stay vectors, so the SVG is sharp at any zoom, and pictures keep the resolution they have. The letters are outlines, so the text can no longer be edited or searched.
Why is the SVG a different size from the EPUB?
An SVG page stores every letter as an outline, so the pages together are usually larger than the EPUB.
Are my EPUB files uploaded?
Yes, for this conversion. A faithful EPUB to SVG conversion needs Calibre and MuPDF, two open-source tools, which cannot run in a browser. The file travels over an encrypted connection, is converted in a private temporary folder, and is deleted together with the SVG as soon as the result has been sent back to you. We do not keep, read or share it.
Can I convert several EPUB files to SVG at once?
Yes. Select or drop as many files as you like; they are converted one after another and each gets its own download button.
How do I open an SVG file?
SVG renders natively in every browser. SVG is common for logos, icons, charts and illustrations on the web.
Is this EPUB to SVG converter free?
Yes. There is no sign-up and no watermark. Because this conversion uses our server, there is a fair-use limit of 25 MB per file and a number of files per hour, which stops the service being overloaded.
Can I convert EPUB to SVG on my phone?
Yes. It works in Safari on iPhone and iPad and in Chrome on Android. The conversion happens on our server, so it is as fast on a phone as on a computer; the SVG is saved to your Downloads folder.