My file is an SVG or a PDF but you say it is not vector?

Short answer: An SVG or a PDF can also contain a bitmap (raster) image. The extension is no guarantee that the content is vector — and that image is then what sets your print quality.

Cause

SVG, PDF and AI are containers. A photo or a PNG can just as easily be dropped inside one: the file then carries the extension of a vector format while holding an image that is not vector at all.

The picture in the Word document

A Word document contains text. If you paste a photo into it, the photo does not turn into text: you cannot spell-check it, and you cannot change its font. It stays a photo, simply stored inside a Word document.

It works exactly the same way here. A bitmap placed inside an SVG stays a bitmap — it gains none of the qualities of vector artwork just by sitting in a vector file.

It is not all one or all the other

One and the same file can very well be 80% vector and still contain a bitmap image: the text and the shapes are real geometric shapes, but the emblem in the middle, or a texture, is a pasted image. So it is not a matter of “vector” or “not vector” — the question is which parts of the logo are vector.

And it is the bitmap part that sets the limit: it will scale up no better than the original image, however good the rest is. A logo that is 80% vector but whose emblem is a low-resolution image will print at the quality of that emblem.

This is very common when a logo has been “converted” by an automatic tool, or taken from a website.

The system tells you

Now that SVG files can be uploaded, you no longer have to make the diagnosis yourself: we analyze the file on upload. If the logo is true vector artwork, its sheet displays a green line, “Vector file (SVG): optimal print quality at any size”.

If the file contains an image, the green line gives way to an orange warning: “This SVG file contains a bitmap image: it is not true vector artwork. That image is what limits print quality, not the SVG format.” The sheet then states the pixel dimensions that image actually supplies, and applies the same 4000 px minimum to it as to a PNG — in red if it falls short.

Two special cases:

The file contains nothing but an image, with no vector artwork at all: the upload is refused, with the message “Error: this SVG file contains no vector drawing at all, only a bitmap image, and it could not be converted. Upload that image itself (PNG) rather than the SVG file.” Do exactly that — you lose nothing, the SVG was adding nothing.
The image could not be measured: the sheet says so in red, and print quality cannot then be guaranteed. See My SVG file was rejected, what do I do.

For a PDF, none of this applies: the site does not upload PDF files, so you have to send them to us — see How do I send you my logo if I have no print file.

How to check for yourself

Useful for settling the question before you go back to your graphic designer, or for a file you cannot upload.

1. The file size. A fully vector logo is light: from a few kilobytes up to around 300 KB. Beyond that — and especially at several megabytes — the file almost certainly contains a bitmap image, because the bitmap is what makes a file large.

2. Open the SVG in a text editor (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on Mac). An SVG is in fact readable text: you should see tags such as <path, <polygon, <circle, <g.

What should put you on alert:

What you see	What it means
`<image` and `base64` followed by a huge block of letters and numbers running on for pages	A bitmap image is embedded in the file
`href="data:image…"` or `href="something.png"`	Same thing: the file points at an image
`href="#..."` (with a hash)	Normal, this is not a bitmap: it is an internal reference to the artwork

The word href on its own proves nothing: perfectly good vector logos contain it, to reuse a shape or a gradient. What gives a bitmap away is href="data:image… / base64, or the <image tag.

3. Zoom in hard in your viewer. If the outlines go blurry or pixelated, the part you are looking at is bitmap. Zoom in on every element of the logo — that is the only way to spot the bitmap part of a partly vector file.

For a PDF, the Notepad test does not work (the content is compressed). Stick to the file size and the zoom.

Solution

Ask your graphic designer for the original source file, the one the logo was drawn in — not a conversion, and with the fonts converted to outlines. If it does not exist, or if part of the logo is bitmap, that part has to be vectorized — see How do I get a print-quality logo.