An SVG can look perfect on your screen and still go wrong at the machine. A screen shows what the shapes look like. A cutter follows how they are stored, and that is where the trouble hides.
Here are the problems that come up most: what you see, why it happens, the fix by hand, and what our free SVG check and repair does about it.
1. "Image Not Saved", or the file is "too complex"
What you see: Cricut Design Space refuses the upload, or says the file is too complex.
Why: every curve in an SVG is held in place by points. Artwork that was auto-traced from a picture can have thousands, and files exported from laser or CAD software are often far heavier than they look. Design Space refuses files with too many points. In our tests it took a file of about 28,000 points and refused one of about 81,000.
Fix it by hand: simplify the paths in a vector editor (Path, then Simplify in Inkscape; Object, Path, Simplify in Illustrator) until the count comes down. Watch the small details, which soften first.
With the tool: the free check counts the points in your file. A repair cuts the point count: it removes doubled lines and smooths away points the cutter doesn't need, and it shows the count before and after. A very detailed tracing can still be too heavy after a repair. The page tells you so before you pay, and stronger smoothing may be needed.
2. The machine cuts the same line twice
What you see: the blade or laser follows a line, then follows it again. Vinyl can tear and a laser leaves a darker burn.
Why: the line is in the file twice, one copy on top of the other. It happens when shapes are copied in place, or when a file is exported from laser or CAD software.
Fix it by hand: click the line and drag it aside. If a twin stays behind, delete one of the two.
With the tool: the check counts the doubled line segments and the repair keeps one copy of each. It removes lines drawn exactly on top of each other. A copy nudged a hair to one side counts as a different line and stays, so look at the preview before you download.
3. Shapes that won't fill, weld or offset
What you see: a shape that should be solid stays an empty outline: design software can't fill it, and tools made for closed shapes, like weld and offset, have little to work with. At the machine the blade lifts at every break and pieces don't come out whole.
Why: the outline is open. Its two ends stop just short of meeting, or it was drawn as many separate little lines, which is common in files from CAD and laser software.
Fix it by hand: zoom in on the break, select the two end points and join them (the node tool's join button in Inkscape; Object, Path, Join in Illustrator).
With the tool: the repair joins line pieces that meet end to end into continuous lines and closes gaps up to the distance you choose: 0.5 mm to start with, 2 mm at most. Every gap it closes is ringed green on the preview, and any gap wider than your setting is ringed red. Rows of short dashes, like score and perforation lines, are left as dashes.
4. A solid block instead of your design
What you see: the design arrives as one big rectangle, or the machine spends minutes cutting round dots too small to see.
Why: tracing programs often put a rectangle the size of the page behind the artwork, and turn every dust speck in a scan into a tiny shape of its own.
Fix it by hand: ungroup the design, click the rectangle behind everything and delete it. Specks have to be found and deleted one by one.
With the tool: the check reports both. The repair leaves out a white background rectangle and the specks too small to cut, and you can keep either with a tick box. A colored rectangle is kept as the bottom layer of the design, and you can leave it out if it is only a traced background.
5. Colors that turn black or solid
Gradients and see-through shapes are shown by Design Space as black or solid, so soft shading comes in dark. The check counts both, and the repair gives each the solid color it really looks like. Layers stacked whole under each other are a different problem: that is a job for Knock Out Layers.
6. Nothing to cut
Why: the file opens and the picture is there, but the SVG is only a wrapper round it. A PNG or JPG placed inside an SVG is still made of pixels, not lines, so a cutter has nothing to follow.
The fix: the picture has to be traced. When a file is only a picture, the check offers to send it to Image to SVG, which traces a picture into cut-ready color layers. The repair doesn't trace pictures: if a file has cut shapes and a picture, it keeps the shapes and leaves the picture out.
7. Missing lettering
What you see: the words in the design are missing, or in the wrong font, once the file leaves the computer it was made on.
Why: live text is stored as letters plus the name of a font. The letter shapes exist only on a computer that has that font.
The fix: turn the text into outlines (also called paths or curves) in your design app before you save: Path, then Object to Path in Inkscape; Type, then Create Outlines in Illustrator. We don't have your fonts, so the repair can't draw the letters for you: the check counts the pieces of live text and asks you to convert them first.
8. A design from Canva prints wrong
What you see: a card or label with painted flowers and script lettering, downloaded as an SVG, prints with the lettering wrong.
Why: an SVG is for cut shapes. A design like this is pictures and live text, which often print wrong from inside an SVG. It is the wrong kind of file for Print Then Cut.
The fix: download the design as a PNG, not an SVG, and upload it to Design Space as a Flat Graphic for Print Then Cut. The check shows this hint whenever it finds live text or a picture in a file.
9. The wrong size on the mat
What you see: a design that should be 8 cm tall arrives at 23 cm, or tiny.
Why: the usual case is a file sized in pixels. Cricut Design Space reads pixels a third bigger than a web browser does. Why an SVG imports at the wrong size has the long version.
The fix: the size fix at the top of the Fix SVG page is free and needs no account. It rewrites the size the file declares without changing a single path. A repair keeps the size Cricut reads unless you pick "As Fix size sets it", and you can also type the width you want.
Check and repair a file in three steps
- Check it, free. On the Fix SVG page, choose one SVG (up to 5 MB) and click Check for problems. In a few seconds you get a list of what would go wrong at the cutter.
- Repair it and look at the preview. When the check finds problems that can be fixed, Repair this file (free account needed) makes a clean copy and shows a preview with a list of what was fixed. Change the smoothing, the gap distance or the width and the preview follows.
- Download. Take the SVG for Cricut Design Space or the DXF for Silhouette Studio, Brother CanvasWorkspace and laser software, at true size or at the width you typed.
What it costs
The check and the size fix are free and need no account. For a repair, uploading a file and looking at the preview cost nothing. Downloading costs 5 credits per file, taken first from the 25 free credits a free account gets every month. After that, every option and both file types of the same file are free, and the repaired file is kept in your Jobs list for 90 days.
Only upload designs you own or have permission to use. The help page covers the rest of the site.
Check your SVG for cutting problems
The free check lists what would go wrong when your SVG is cut: doubled lines, open shapes, too many points, a background rectangle. No account needed, and the file isn't kept.
Check an SVG →Frequently asked questions
- Is the SVG check really free?
- Yes. No account, one SVG of up to 5 MB at a time, and the file isn't kept. If a file is too heavy for the free check, the page says so and offers the signed-in repair instead.
- Will a repair get every "too complex" file into Cricut Design Space?
- No, and we won't promise it. A repair cuts the point count and shows the new count before you pay. A very detailed tracing can still be too heavy afterwards. The page says so, and stronger smoothing makes the file lighter.
- Does the repair trace pictures or convert text to outlines?
- No. It works on the cut shapes and lines already in the SVG. A picture needs Image to SVG, and live text has to be converted to outlines in your design app first.
- Will the repair change how my design looks?
- It keeps the look of the design and changes how it is stored. Curves become short straight steps, which is how cutters trace them. The preview shows the result before you pay, and the options let you turn each fix up, down or off.
- Which file should I download for my machine?
- For Cricut Design Space, use the SVG. The DXF is for Silhouette Studio, Brother CanvasWorkspace and laser software.