An error occurred when importing an SVG

Question

I have an Office 365 subscription and I am an Office Insider, therefore I was expecting to be able to import SVG files into Powerpoint 2016.  However, when I do this, it says "An error occurred while importing this file."  Am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

Hi Graham,

Thank you for expressing your concerns about ungrouping SVG. We understand that is a blocking feature that will prevent users from switching to SVG from EMF/WMF. We hear your concerns and will consider this for the future.

Thank you!

Constance

Answer 2

Hi Ced,

Thanks for your reply.  That page is how I found out how to get SVGs into Powerpoint by first converting to EMFs.  It works sometimes but not others...

Would you (or anyone else) mind trying to replicate my problem so I can see if it is just me?

Instructions:

1. Download this SVG: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/BlankMap-World3.svg
2. Convert it to EMF.  (I do this by opening it in Inkscape then Save As EMF)
3. Insert it to Powerpoint, by going to Insert > Picture.  Clicking on the image shows that it has inserted it as a Picture.
4. Right-click on it, and select Ungroup.  It will ask you if you want to convert it to a Drawing object.  Say Yes.
5. Clicking on the image now shows that it is a Drawing; the conversion worked.  Right-click and select Ungroup again and it will split into hundreds of different drawing objects which can be edited - perfect!

^ All this works perfectly for that particular SVG file.

However, now try this SVG: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/BlankMap-World7.svg

Follow the same procedure above.  When I get to step 5, it is still saying it is a Picture.  When I try to ungroup it, it once again asks me if I want to convert to a Drawing object, but fails again to convert it.

My question is: why does this work for the "World3" SVG file, but not the "World7" SVG file?

Thanks.

Answer 3

Try the suggestions here: How would you insert a .svg file in Powerpoint?

Answer 4

Hi Mel,

Thanks for responding but that is not correct.  Powerpoint does now support SVG file format.  See this: https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Insert-SVG-images-in-Microsoft-Office-69f29d39-194a-4072-8c35-dbe5e7ea528c

My problem apparently sorted itself out though, because when I tried again today it was able to import the SVG file.  However, it did not do so in the way I was expecting.  I was expecting it to work like an EMF.  That is, I thought it would be a picture when first imported, which I can then convert to a drawing object by clicking ungroup, then ungroup again to edit individual drawing objects within the original SVG.  This is not what happened.  After importing the SVG, it was neither a picture nor a drawing but a 'graphic'.  This is a new class of object to me, and it appears that it can't be converted to a drawing, so there is no way to edit in Powerpoint the individual objects within the original SVG.  This is disappointing, because it means to be able to do that I will have to continue to convert the SVG to EMF before importing to Powerpoint.

If anyone does know a way of getting an SVG into Powerpoint and then being able to edit it, without converting to EMF before importing, then I'd love to hear it.  The reason I want to do this is because I have an SVG that refuses to ungroup once in Powerpoint and I don't know why.  I was hoping importing the SVG directly, rather than converting to EMF first, might solve the problem.  But apparently it won't.

Graham

Answer 5

Hi Graham,

Powerpoint does not support .svg file format. In order to insert it, you'll need to convert the image into a supported format.

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