Convert a PDF (or anything you can see on your computer screen) to an SVG file!

You are probably wondering why you would want to know how to do this. Well, I’ll tell you, if you have a Cricut and SCAL software you will be able to cut it, that’s why! I found a cute bunny pattern over at familyfun.com and cut it with my cricut to make this cute card:

Learn to make this card with your cricut.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a cricut, you can print out the pattern, cut out the bunny and trace it on a folded sheet of cardstock and cut it out to make your card that way. But if you have a cricut this is a good trick to know because so many patterns are available for free in pdf format!

You will need a cricut machine, Sure Cuts a Lot software (SCAL) and a free program called Inkscape for this tutorial.

Step 1. Go here to find the bunny pattern, click the image so you can see it full size, it is on page 2 of the pdf file. Zoom in on the right hand bunny and press the “print screen” key on your keyboard.

zoom in on the little bunny and press the "print screen" key (top row on the computer keyboard.)

Open your image editing software (I use Paint Shop Pro but photoshop is fine too) and go under edit and paste as a new image.

Crop the image so all that you see is one bunny

Use the "magic wand" tool to select the bunny (click inside the bunny). Then under the adjust menu select hue/saturation/lightness.

Desaturate (make black) the bunny.

Now save this file as bunny.jpg. Open Inkscape and open the bunny.jpg, choose the arrow on the top of  left hand tool bar. click on the bunny, you will see a box with arrows at the corners and on the sides of the box around the bunny.

Go under the path menu and choose "trace bitmap"

After you click "trace bitmap" click update and the screen will look like this. Click OK. PLEASE NOTE: The update button does not work in the new version of inkscape, just click "OK"

Save the file.

*Note: If the pattern you are converting is low quality or hand drawn go under path again and choose “simplify”. That will smooth out any bumps and give you a quick, clean cut. This pattern was so clean that I did not have to do this. Using the simplify function can distort your image a bit so only use it on low quality (pixalated) or hand drawn images.

It will automatically save the file as an svg file.

Now you have converted a pfd file into an svg! This method will work with anything you can see on your screen so if you make a design in another program you can convert that too! How fun!

This is how to get this file into SCAL so you can cut it with your cricut. Open scal, under file choose import svg, then select you file and open it! Easy peasy!

The file is imported, to make the card copy and paste the bunny. Flip one of the bunnies and make sure you check "weld" for each and link them up at the tails like this and cut.

There you have it. It wasn’t so hard. Now you can cut dang near anything with your cricut. Leave me a comment if you get stuck, I’m happy to help.

Until next time happy crafting!