Can you export an SVG from Cricut Design Space?
Cricut Design Space has no command that saves a project as an SVG file. What Save and Share do instead, and how to get a design out by tracing a screenshot.
Published
No. Cricut Design Space has no export: a project cannot be saved as an SVG, or as any other file, from the program. Save and Save As keep the project in your Cricut account, where it opens only in Design Space. To get a design of your own out, there are three routes: go back to the files it was built from, draw it again in a vector editor, or take a screenshot of the canvas and trace it into a new SVG. The traced copy is close, not exact.
What Save does
Cricut’s guide to the canvas describes Save as saving the project to your account, so that it can be opened on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, and Save As as making a copy under a new name. Neither writes a file that another program can open. The upload screen takes files in (JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, HEIC, SVG and DXF), and nothing in the menus sends a design out again.
A project can often be passed to another Cricut user without a file. On a computer or an iPhone or iPad, find the project in My Stuff, choose its share icon and copy the private link. Cricut’s help pages say sharing is not available in the Android app. They also say that canvases containing uploaded images or fonts from your own computer are kept private and cannot be made public in Design Space, to protect the artists whose work may be in them.
Route 1: use the original files
If the project was built from SVGs you uploaded, those files are still wherever they were saved before the upload. Design Space takes a copy and leaves the original alone. The edits made on the canvas are not in the file, but the same edits, and more, can be made directly: how to edit an SVG file covers the code, Inkscape and the limits of each.
Route 2: draw it again in a vector editor
A design made in Design Space from basic shapes and lettering is usually quick to rebuild in Inkscape, which is free and saves SVG as its own format. Fonts installed on the computer are available there too. Fonts and images from Cricut’s library are not: they exist only inside Design Space.
This is the only route that gives clean, exact shapes. How to make an SVG file lists what a file for cutting needs.
Route 3: screenshot and trace
A screenshot is a picture of the design, and a tracer turns a picture back into shapes. The better the screenshot, the better the trace.
Prepare the canvas.
- Set every layer to black, or to a few clearly different flat colours. Pale colours trace badly against a white canvas.
- Hide what is not part of the design: other layers, guides and templates.
- Turn the grid off. On a computer the Canvas Grid options are in Settings, reached from the menu at the top of the window.
- Make the design as large as the window allows, so that the screenshot has as many pixels as possible.
Take the screenshot. On Windows, press the Windows key, Shift and S, and drag a box around the design. On a Mac, press Shift, Command and 4, and drag. Windows keeps the picture on the clipboard and, in current versions, also saves it in the Screenshots folder inside Pictures. A Mac saves it to the desktop unless set otherwise.
Trace it. Open the picture in PNG to SVG. Choose black and white for a design in one colour, which gives one clean outline for each shape, or colours for a design in several. Move the threshold until the preview matches the design, then download the SVG. The file holds shapes only, with no copy of the screenshot inside: in black and white, one path; in colours, a rectangle in the background colour and then one path for each other colour, each lying under the ones above.
Set the size. A screenshot has no real size, so the traced SVG will not open at the size the project was. Note the width shown in Design Space before starting, then set that width with resize SVG, or type it in when the file is next opened.
Check it. Open the result in the SVG viewer and zoom in on corners and small details.
How good is a traced copy?
| Part of the design | After tracing |
|---|---|
| Large, simple shapes | Very close to the original |
| Sharp corners | Kept when the screenshot is large. Slightly rounded when it is small |
| Thin lines and small lettering | The first things to suffer. Enlarge the design on screen before the screenshot |
| Separate layers | In black and white, everything becomes one colour. In colour mode, each colour becomes one path, over a rectangle in the background colour: delete that rectangle’s layer after uploading |
| Lines set to draw or score | Traced as thin filled shapes, not single lines |
| Size | Lost. Set it again |
A trace follows the edges of pixels, so it can only be as good as the picture. For a design that will be sold or cut many times, drawing it again in a vector editor is worth the time.
Whose design is it?
Getting a file out is only half the question. A project made from your own drawings and your own uploaded files is yours. A project that uses images or fonts from Cricut’s library, or SVGs bought from a designer, contains other people’s work, and the licence that came with it decides what may be done with a copy. Cricut publishes its terms on its own site, and designers state theirs where the file is sold. Read them before sharing or selling a traced copy.
Common problems
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No Export or Download in any menu | Design Space does not have one | Use one of the three routes above |
| The trace has ragged edges | The screenshot was small | Enlarge the design on screen and take it again |
| Grid lines appear in the SVG | The canvas grid was on | Turn it off in Settings, or raise the threshold until the lines drop out |
| Pale layers are missing | They were too light to count as ink | Recolour them black before the screenshot |
| The traced file opens at the wrong size | A screenshot carries no real size | Set the width after opening, or with resize SVG |
Questions
Can a project be saved to the computer at all? Not as a file to open elsewhere. Projects live in the Cricut account, and Design Space can keep them on the device for use offline, but those copies are for Design Space only.
Can Design Space export a PNG or a PDF? There is no export for those either. A Print Then Cut project can be sent to a printer, but the page carries the sensor marks the machine needs and is meant for printing. A screenshot is the simpler way to get a picture of the canvas.
Will a traced SVG upload back into Design Space? Yes. It contains plain shapes with flat fills, which is what the upload expects.
Is there a format that moves between Cricut and Silhouette? SVG, made outside both programs. Keep the master copy of a design as an SVG, and upload it to whichever program is needed. Opening an SVG in Silhouette Studio explains which edition of that program is required.