MS Word: Save vector graphics (SVG) when saving document as PDF
Microsoft recently added support for SVG in Word 2016. But if you try to save a document containing an SVG vector graphic as PDF, the graphic file will be converted to a bitmap.
I tried to change the image size and quality parameters (-> "do not compress images in file" and "high fidelity"), but that did not affect what was. My second approach was to use "Microsoft Print to PDF" -printer, but that also didn't save graphics.
Is there a way to keep my graphics scalable while saving the document as pdf? Is there an option in the settings that I haven't discovered yet?
If it's just a problem with SVG: what other vector graphics format would work better?
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I have Adobe Acrobat X Pro 10.1.16.13 installed, which gives me the "Save as PDF" option in Word 2016, which puts SVG graphics into a PDF file as vector graphics.
I user Insert | Picture to get SVG graphic files to word.
An SVG 70K file, for example, slows down my editing significantly in Word, so I put the JPG or PNG graphics in the Word file before the final draft, then I replace them with SVG files as a final step before saving as PDF.
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On the same day this question arose. SVG seems to be broken in Word. One way I found to keep graphics scalable in PDF output from Word:
- Open SVG in Inkscape
- Select all and copy to clipboard
- Using Paste Special in Word (Alt + E, S) pastes it into the document as "Image (Enhanced Metafile)"
I believe this also works in previous versions of Word at least as far back as 2013 and 2010.
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In response to your last question:
"If it's just an SVG problem: what other vector graphics format would work better?"
For years, the only vector format that Word supported was Microsoft's own .emf file format. If you have any further problems, you can always try converting .svg to .emf. Inkscape can be exported as .emf and in my experience it is a much more accurate conversion than Adobe Illustrator.
By the way, the workaround Andrew posted above works by converting the clipboard data to an .emf file. However, there are a few cases where exporting from Inkscape directly is preferable, such as when you want to keep a clipboard of whitespace around your graphics (using the clipboard will not pick up whitespace).
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