CairoSVG

2.9.0 · active · verified Thu Apr 09

CairoSVG is a Python library that converts SVG files to other formats such as PNG, PDF, and EPS. It is built on top of the Cairo graphics library. The current version is 2.9.0, and it maintains a regular release cadence, including minor feature updates and critical security patches.

Warnings

breaking CairoSVG frequently drops support for older Python versions. As of 2.9.0, Python 3.9 is no longer supported, requiring Python >=3.10. Earlier versions dropped support for Python 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8.
Fix: Upgrade your Python environment to at least 3.10 or ensure your CairoSVG version is compatible with your Python version. Always check the `requires_python` field on PyPI.
breaking To prevent denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, CairoSVG 2.9.0 introduced a hard limit of 100,000 recursively nested `<use>` tags. Documents exceeding this limit will stop rendering prematurely.
Fix: For unusually large or complex documents with many `<use>` tags, use the `--unsafe` option on the command line or the `unsafe=True` parameter in conversion functions. Review your SVG structure to reduce excessive nesting if possible.
breaking As of CairoSVG 2.7.0, fetching external resources (like remote images or stylesheets) from SVGs is disabled by default due to security concerns. This can lead to missing content in converted outputs if external URLs are used.
Fix: To allow fetching external resources, use the `--unsafe` option on the command line or pass `unsafe=True` or a custom `url_fetcher` parameter to the conversion functions. Exercise caution when enabling this option with untrusted SVG sources.
breaking Versions prior to 2.5.1 were vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) attacks when processing malicious SVG files, potentially causing the process to hang indefinitely.
Fix: Upgrade to CairoSVG 2.5.1 or newer immediately to mitigate ReDoS vulnerabilities. This is a critical security update.

Install

pip install cairosvg Install CairoSVG
sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev # Debian/Ubuntu brew install cairo # macOS # Other OS may require manual Cairo installation Install Cairo (OS-level dependency)

Imports

svg2png
```
from cairosvg import svg2png
```
svg2pdf
```
from cairosvg import svg2pdf
```
svg2svg
```
from cairosvg import svg2svg
```
Used for 'fixing' SVG files or converting between SVG versions.
svg2eps
```
from cairosvg import svg2eps
```
EPS export was added in version 2.5.0.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to convert a simple SVG byte string to a PNG and a PDF file using `cairosvg.svg2png` and `cairosvg.svg2pdf`. The `bytestring` parameter expects bytes, and `write_to` expects a file-like object open in binary write mode.

import cairosvg
import os

# Example SVG content as a byte string
svg_content_bytes = b'''
<svg width="200" height="200" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <rect x="50" y="50" width="100" height="100" fill="red" />
  <circle cx="100" cy="100" r="40" fill="yellow" />
</svg>
'''

# Convert SVG to PNG and save to a file
png_output_path = "output.png"
with open(png_output_path, "wb") as f_png:
    cairosvg.svg2png(bytestring=svg_content_bytes, write_to=f_png)
print(f"SVG converted to PNG: {png_output_path}")

# Convert SVG to PDF and save to a file
pdf_output_path = "output.pdf"
with open(pdf_output_path, "wb") as f_pdf:
    cairosvg.svg2pdf(bytestring=svg_content_bytes, write_to=f_pdf)
print(f"SVG converted to PDF: {pdf_output_path}")

# Clean up generated files (optional)
# os.remove(png_output_path)
# os.remove(pdf_output_path)

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