Creating Stencils: SVG vs PNG for Home Cutting Machines

Whether you're decorating cookies, cakes, or crafting custom designs, using a stencil with a home cutting machine can bring your creativity to life. But should you use an SVG or a PNG format for your stencils?

SVG: The Ideal Format for Cutting Machines

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is the preferred format for most home cutting machines like Cricut, Silhouette, or Brother ScanNCut. Since SVGs describe shapes and paths rather than individual pixels, they allow the machine to follow precise cutting instructions with clean, scalable lines.

When to choose SVG:

You need clean, sharp stencil edges for intricate or detailed designs.
You plan to resize the stencil without losing quality.
You want your machine to trace exact shapes rather than outlines of a raster image.

When PNG Still Makes Sense

PNG is a pixel-based image format. While not ideal for cutting paths directly, it can still be useful in some scenarios:

You want to print the stencil rather than cut it digitally.
You are using a cutting machine that has automatic image tracing features built in.
Your design is simple and doesn't require path precision.

However, using PNG often means you'll rely on the cutting software to trace the outlines automatically, which may result in less accurate cuts compared to an SVG.

Quick Comparison

Feature	SVG	PNG
Best Use	Cutting with precision	Simple printing or tracing
Scalability	Infinite, no quality loss	Fixed size, can blur when scaled
Cutting Machine Compatibility	Excellent	Good (with auto-tracing)
Editing	Editable in design software (e.g., Illustrator, Inkscape)	Editable in photo editors (e.g., Photoshop)

Conclusion

For most stencil projects involving cutting machines, SVG is the better choice. It gives you crisp, reliable results and full control over the design. PNG still has a place for simpler tasks, especially printing or quick design previews. The right format depends on how you plan to use the stencil—but when in doubt and using a cutter, go with SVG.