Type your words, choose a typeface, and download an SVG in which every letter is a real outline: paths a cutting machine, a laser or a plotter can follow, with no font needed to open it.

Free, no account. The file is read by code running in your browser. It is not uploaded, and nothing about it is stored.

How to turn text into an SVG

Type your words in the box. Press Enter to start a new line.
Pick one of the sixteen typefaces, or choose “Use your own font” and load a .ttf or .otf file from your device.
Set the size in millimetres: either the height of a capital letter or the width of the whole block.
Adjust the letter spacing, line spacing and alignment, and tick “Weld” if the letters overlap.
Check the size and the preview, then download the SVG.

What is in the file

An SVG can hold text as text: the words, plus the name of a font. That only looks right on a device that has the font, and cutting programs often cannot use it at all. This page writes the other kind. Each letter is a <path> holding the outline the type designer drew, with the same curves the font file has, and every outline is closed. Nothing in the file refers to a font, so it opens the same everywhere.

The width, height and viewBox are in millimetres and the page fits the ink exactly, with no margin. Set in Lilita One with capitals 25 mm tall, the word Hello comes out 75.29 mm wide and 25.43 mm tall: a little over 25 because the round letters and the tall l reach past the flat top of the H, as they do in most typefaces. Programs that read units, such as Inkscape, open the file at that size. If your cutting program opens it at another size, type in the width shown beside the preview.

Font sizes in points measure the whole line, not the letters. In Lilita One a capital is 0.701 of the font size, so 25 mm capitals are a 35.66 mm font, which is 101 pt. The page shows both figures for whatever you set.

Font to SVG with the built-in typefaces

Sixteen typefaces are offered: Lilita One, Bebas Neue, Righteous, Alfa Slab One, Abril Fatface, Yeseva One, Pacifico, Lobster, Cookie, Kaushan Script, Cinzel Decorative, Bungee, Amatic SC, Rye, Creepster and UnifrakturMaguntia. All are published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, and the page links to the licence of the one you pick, with its designers’ copyright line. That licence covers the font files. It puts no conditions on artwork made with them, so lettering made here can go on things you sell.

A font file is fetched only when you choose it and there are words to set. Five of the faces have capitals only: Bebas Neue, Cinzel Decorative, Bungee, Amatic SC and Creepster draw capitals or small capitals where you type lower-case letters.

TTF to SVG: using your own font

“Use your own font” reads a TrueType (.ttf) or OpenType (.otf) file in the page. It is not uploaded. The font’s name is shown beside the result, with whatever the file says about its licence. Whether you may turn a font into outlines, and sell what you make with it, depends on that font’s licence, which is yours to check: many fonts that are free for personal use need a paid licence for products.

A font collection (.ttc) and a WOFF2 web font are refused with a message. A variable font is drawn at its default weight and width. A colour font is drawn as its plain outlines, if it has any.

Welding letters for a cutting machine

In a script face such as Pacifico or Cookie, each letter’s tail runs into the next letter. On screen that looks like one stroke. To a blade it is two outlines that cross, and it will cut along both, slicing the word apart at every join. “Weld overlapping letters into one shape” merges everything that overlaps or touches, so a word in a script becomes one piece with the holes of its letters kept. It is ticked for you when you choose Pacifico, Lobster or Cookie, and the page warns you when letters overlap in any other face.

Welding has a cost: the merged outline is made of short straight pieces that stay within 0.01 mm of the true curve, so the file has more points. For letters that stand apart, leave it unticked and each letter keeps the font’s own curves.

Kerning, ligatures and what is not applied

Kerning is applied: the adjustments a font stores for pairs such as AV and To. The page counts the pairs it moved.
Standard ligatures are applied: joined forms such as fi and ffl where the font has them. Untick either box to turn it off.
Not applied: contextual alternates, swashes, stylistic sets, and the special start and end forms that some script fonts keep for the first and last letter of a word. A word may therefore look slightly plainer here than in a design program that applies them.
Left to right only. Hebrew and Arabic come out in the wrong order and Arabic letters are not joined correctly. Scripts that need reordering, such as Devanagari and Thai, are not set correctly either. The page warns you when your text contains them.
Characters the font lacks are left out and listed. Up to 2,000 characters are set.

Questions

Why not just save SVG text?

SVG text needs its font wherever the file is opened. Without it another font is swapped in and the design changes. Cutting and laser programs want shapes in any case. Outlines are shapes: they look the same everywhere and can be cut, engraved or drawn. The cost is that you can no longer edit the wording, so keep a note of the font and the words.

Can it convert a whole TTF into an SVG font?

No. An SVG font is an old way of storing a typeface inside an SVG file, and most browsers no longer read it. This page turns the letters you type into outlines. To get every letter of a font as shapes, type the alphabet, the figures and the punctuation you need.

Is this an SVG text generator for web pages?

It makes an SVG picture of your words, which you can place on a page like any image, and it will look the same for every visitor without loading a web font. It does not write <text> elements; the guide to SVG text covers those.

How big should lettering be for vinyl?

What matters is the thinnest stroke, not the height, because thin strips of vinyl lift when you weed. A capital I is a quick guide: set one on its own and read its width beside the preview. In Bebas Neue it is 1.57 mm wide when capitals are 10 mm tall; in Righteous it is 2 mm. Faces with hairlines, such as Abril Fatface, and light scripts, such as Cookie, need to be set larger before their thin parts hold.

Why are some of my characters missing?

The typeface has no shape for them. Display fonts often leave out accents, symbols or whole alphabets. The page lists what was left out; try another typeface, or load a font of your own that has them.

Text to SVG converter