SVG for Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV)
Heat transfer vinyl (HTV) projects start with an SVG file in your cutting machine software. Vectorize your design to get clean, cuttable SVG paths ready for Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio — then cut, weed, and press.
About SVG for heat transfer vinyl
Heat transfer vinyl is the craft and garment decoration material cut on machines like Cricut Maker, Cricut Joy, Silhouette Cameo, and Brother ScanNCut. The cutting machine reads an SVG file and cuts the vinyl into the design shape. After cutting, excess vinyl is weeded away and the remaining design is heat pressed onto the garment.
HTV-specific SVG requirements: — Design must be mirrored (flipped horizontally) before cutting — all Cricut and Silhouette software do this automatically when HTV material is selected. — Keep designs under 11.75 inches wide for standard 12-inch HTV rolls. — Designs with multiple colors require each color to be a separate SVG layer, cut from different HTV rolls and layered in order (lightest to darkest, bottom to top).
Vectorizing for HTV: Upload your PNG or JPEG design to the vectorizer. Download the SVG. Import into Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio. Assign the material as Iron-On or HTV. Mirror is applied automatically. Send to cutter.
HTV types that work with vectorized SVG designs: smooth HTV, glitter HTV, foil HTV, flocked HTV, and printable HTV. For printable HTV (sublimation or inkjet printable HTV), export the design as a PNG at 300 DPI instead.
Top HTV brands: Siser Easyweed, Cricut Iron-On, ThermoFlex Plus, StyleTech. All are compatible with SVG files from any vectorizer.