SVG ok for exhibition stand printing?

Printing and Prepress
#1

I prefer to use eps files but a client I have is…difficult on a good day outright rude on a bad.

They have provided SVGs and I have always had the impression that SVGs are for web and eps for large scale printing, am I wrong? Very conflicting advice online and given the difficulty of the client I don’t want it to get to print and have issues!

For context, they are 20 logos to be stacked in a grid on a navy background (the visibility will be a future problem as I doubt any of them have a white variation provided) among other designs on two boards I think 2m x 4m.

#2

Hi Hello !, as far as I know SVG is most used in HTML 5 for showing vector graphics on the screen but for printing EPS or PDF for printing. I don’t see SVG for printing but may be you need to make clear with them and convert those images to EPS (should be best for printing). I hope this helps !

#3

SVG are scalable vector graphics - more commonly used for the web - they can only contain RGB and do not support CMYK - for digital printing they are not an issue.
However, for litho printing (printing with plates) black text would be converted from RGB to CMYK result in 4 colour black text - which would be horrible for registration and likely rejected from the printers.

EPS are archaic file formats and mostly obsolete (even though I use them every day)
There’s no need to resave all your files if they are EPS - if they are working fine and no issues - don’t find what’s not broke.

.ai are more common for logos - or a PDF saved from illustrator with editing capabilities - and as PDFX4a

If you’re supplied SVG and they work fine - then there’s no need to chang them - there would be no way of telling in print PDF that they are SVG or EPS or AI or PDFx4a.

Only the colour would be RGB instead of CMYK for the SVG.
Plus if the digital printing @PrintDriver has. CMYK output the RGB would be converted to CMYK or at least promoted to ProRGB and you might get colour shifts making some logos look terrible as some colours could be out of gamut.

Anyway - I tend to use what’s supplied, PNG, Targa, PDF, EPS, AI, INDD, BMP - as long it works then why bother changing it.

One thing to watch for is any transparency in the SVG might not be supported in the Alpha Channels - so you might end up with a weird solid or semi-transparent block behind the logo.

If in doubt - send a sample to the printer and ask for a RIPed proof - preferably in print - or if they can’t then send by screen.

Or they could print and photograph it and send to you or something.

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#4

SVGs are just vector graphics. We get these sent to us all the time from Broadcast designers.
If Pantones are supplied, they are supported.
If not, like any format, you get what the rip says you get based on the numbers.
Proof Highly Recommended.

As far as imagery and transparency, not the best format.
We’d want the imagery supplied as linked files.
And transparency support is sometimes iffy as Smurf noted.

EPS is a dead format. It does not support transparency, and actually can do some awful, irreversible damage to your file if transparency is saved in that format. Just don’t.

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#5

EPS is a zombie format that roams the world as the rotting corpse of a once useful graphics format. As @PrintDriver said, EPS doesn’t support transparency, which makes it all but useless since transparency is commonplace in today’s world. Another problem with using EPS files received from questionable sources is that one never knows what’s in the dang things. Most anything can be bundled up into EPS since the format was created to encapsulate almost anything into a single file that could be passed through the output RIP. In that sense, they were the prehistoric precursor of PDFs.

As for SVG, the format’s support for CMYK sort of sucks for reasons too numerous to mention, even though it supposedly has some built-in support for CMYK. I’m unsure what the current status of SVG 2 is regarding CMYK, but I wouldn’t trust it. SVG also supports Pantone colors, but again, I wouldn’t trust it. PrintDriver has more experience than I do with that, so I defer to his judgment.

SVG is primarily an RGB format, which isn’t necessarily a problem in printing since most CMYK RIPs can convert RGB to CMYK on the fly. Even so, I don’t like taking the chance that the conversion to the CMYK gamut will convert out-of-gamut RGB colors to something unacceptable. RGB works fine for digital printing since most digital printers can print an extended color space that isn’t strictly limited to CMYK colors. SVGs are perfect for digital mediums, like websites, where I’ve used them extensively.

SVGs were also designed to be slim, svelte, and small in size, making them perfect for websites, but I’ve found they sometimes fail for complicated vector imagery. However, that was several years ago. Perhaps SVG 2 does a better job, but again I wouldn’t trust it.

For all these reasons and many more, I don’t use Inkscape since it relies on SVG.

If I’m using Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Illustrator’s .ai format is best for vector files. In the Affinity suite, .afdesign is the default Affinity Designer vector format. When I receive an EPS file, I always open it in Illustrator to see what happens; then, if all is well, I’ll save it to .ai.

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#6

SVG is RGB only no emdeb of icc profile - no chance
SVG 2 theoretical but not widely supported

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#7

I looked into this a few months ago when I ran into a random online mention about SVG specifications having color support using ICC42 (which, I assume, is how Pantone colors are supported, as PrintDriver mentioned). Anyway, ICC42 support would also make CMYK possible if apps and RIPs supported it, which, to my knowledge, few, if any, do. How the SVG 2 specifications handle this, I don’t know

To refresh my memory, I did a few Google searches and found lots of references to SVG CMYK support via ICC42, but nothing definitive. However, the W3c specs do provide a way to include CMYK support via ICC42. For example:

<color-profile name="acmecmyk" xlink:href="http://printers.example.com/acmecorp/model1234"/>
<circle fill="#CD853F icc-color(acmecmyk, 0.11, 0.48, 0.83, 0.00)"/>

Of course, the W3C specs are for web browsers, so I don’t imagine there’s much hurry to implement CMYK support since the web is RGB. I can imagine it being marginally useful when printing a web page, but I have no idea if any browsers or consumer-level digital printers support it.

As far as I can tell, CMYK and other color system support is possible with ICC42, but so far, that support is application and device-specific, which seems hit-and-miss at best. I doubt there’s any rush for wider support because of SVGs other limitations and its primary purpose being web graphics.

I’m certainly no expert, though. It’s just what I’ve gathered doing a little Google research.

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#8

It’s not widely supported. I had a much longer post about it but deleted by accident.

Will it get there. Only time will tell.

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