How do I save/export an SVG file after creating an SVG with D3.js (IE, safari and chrome)?

Javascript Problem Overview

I currently have a website using D3 and I'd like the user to have the option to save the SVG as an SVG file. I'm using crowbar.js to do this, but it only works on chrome. Nothing happens of safari and IE gives an access denied on the click() method used in crowbar.js to download the file.

var e = document.createElement('script'); 
            
if (window.location.protocol === 'https:') { 
    e.setAttribute('src', 'https://raw.github.com/NYTimes/svg-crowbar/gh-pages/svg-crowbar.js'); 
} else { 
    e.setAttribute('src', 'http://nytimes.github.com/svg-crowbar/svg-crowbar.js'); 
}

e.setAttribute('class', 'svg-crowbar'); 
document.body.appendChild(e);

How do I download an SVG file based on the SVG element on my website in safari, IE and chrome?

Javascript Solutions

Solution 1 - Javascript

There are 5 steps. I often use this method to output inline svg.

get inline svg element to output.
get svg source by XMLSerializer.
add name spaces of svg and xlink.
construct url data scheme of svg by encodeURIComponent method.
set this url to href attribute of some "a" element, and right click this link to download svg file.

//get svg element.
var svg = document.getElementById("svg");

//get svg source.
var serializer = new XMLSerializer();
var source = serializer.serializeToString(svg);

//add name spaces.
if(!source.match(/^<svg[^>]+xmlns="http\:\/\/www\.w3\.org\/2000\/svg"/)){
    source = source.replace(/^<svg/, '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"');
}
if(!source.match(/^<svg[^>]+"http\:\/\/www\.w3\.org\/1999\/xlink"/)){
    source = source.replace(/^<svg/, '<svg xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"');
}

//add xml declaration
source = '<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>\r\n' + source;

//convert svg source to URI data scheme.
var url = "data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,"+encodeURIComponent(source);

//set url value to a element's href attribute.
document.getElementById("link").href = url;
//you can download svg file by right click menu.

Solution 2 - Javascript

I know this has already been answered, and that answer works well most of the time. However I found that it failed on Chrome (but not Firefox) if the svg image was large-ish (about 1MB). It works if you go back to using a Blob construct, as described here and here. The only difference is the type argument. In my code I wanted a single button press to download the svg for the user, which I accomplished with:

var svgData = $("#figureSvg")[0].outerHTML;
var svgBlob = new Blob([svgData], {type:"image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8"});
var svgUrl = URL.createObjectURL(svgBlob);
var downloadLink = document.createElement("a");
downloadLink.href = svgUrl;
downloadLink.download = "newesttree.svg";
document.body.appendChild(downloadLink);
downloadLink.click();
document.body.removeChild(downloadLink);

October 2019 edit: Comments have indicated that this code will work even without appending downloadLink to document.body and subsequently removing it after click(). I believe that used to work on Firefox, but as of now it no longer does (Firefox requires that you append and then remove downloadLink). The code works on Chrome either way.

Solution 3 - Javascript

Combining Dave's and defghi1977 answers. Here is a reusable function:

function saveSvg(svgEl, name) {
    svgEl.setAttribute("xmlns", "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg");
    var svgData = svgEl.outerHTML;
    var preface = '<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>\r\n';
    var svgBlob = new Blob([preface, svgData], {type:"image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8"});
    var svgUrl = URL.createObjectURL(svgBlob);
    var downloadLink = document.createElement("a");
    downloadLink.href = svgUrl;
    downloadLink.download = name;
    document.body.appendChild(downloadLink);
    downloadLink.click();
    document.body.removeChild(downloadLink);
}

Invocation example:

saveSvg(svg, 'test.svg')

Solution 4 - Javascript

For this snippet to work you need FileSaver.js.

function save_as_svg(){
	
		
		var svg_data = document.getElementById("svg").innerHTML //put id of your svg element here
		
		var head = '<svg title="graph" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">'
		
		//if you have some additional styling like graph edges put them inside <style> tag
					
		var style = '<style>circle {cursor: pointer;stroke-width: 1.5px;}text {font: 10px arial;}path {stroke: DimGrey;stroke-width: 1.5px;}</style>'
	
		var full_svg = head +  style + svg_data + "</svg>"
		var blob = new Blob([full_svg], {type: "image/svg+xml"});  
		saveAs(blob, "graph.svg");
		
	
};

Solution 5 - Javascript

I tryed every solution here and nothing worked for me. My picture was always smaller than my d3.js canvas.

I had to set the canvas width, height then do a clearRect on the context to make it works. Here is my working version

Export function:

var svgHtml = document.getElementById("d3-canvas"),
    svgData = new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(svgHtml),
    svgBlob = new Blob([svgData], {type:"image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8"}),
    bounding = svgHtml.getBoundingClientRect(),
    width = bounding.width * 2,
    height = bounding.height * 2,
    canvas = document.createElement("canvas"),
    context = canvas.getContext("2d"),
    exportFileName = 'd3-graph-image.png';

//Set the canvas width and height before loading the new Image
canvas.width = width;
canvas.height = height;

var image = new Image();
image.onload = function() {
    //Clear the context
    context.clearRect(0, 0, width, height);
    context.drawImage(image, 0, 0, width, height);

    //Create blob and save if with FileSaver.js
    canvas.toBlob(function(blob) {
        saveAs(blob, exportFileName);
    });		
};
var svgUrl = URL.createObjectURL(svgBlob);
image.src = svgUrl;

It use FileSaver.js to save the file.

This is my canvas creation, note that i solve the namespace issue here

d3.js canvas creation:

var canvas = d3.select("body")
    .insert("svg")
    .attr('id', 'd3-canvas')
    //Solve the namespace issue (xmlns and xlink)
    .attr("xmlns", "http://www.w3.org/2000/svg")
    .attr("xmlns:xlink", "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink")
    .attr("width", width)
    .attr("height", height);

Solution 6 - Javascript

While this question has been answered, I created a small library called SaveSVG which can help save D3.js generated SVG which use external stylesheets or external definition files (using <use> and def) tags.

Solution 7 - Javascript

Based on @vasyl-vaskivskyi 's answer.

<script src="../../assets/FileSaver.js"></script>
<script>
function save_as_svg(){
	fetch('path/../assets/chart.css')
	.then(response => response.text())
	.then(text => {
		var svg_data = document.getElementById("svg").innerHTML
		var head = '<svg title="graph" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">'
		var style = "<style>" + text + "</style>"
		var full_svg = head +  style + svg_data + "</svg>"
		var blob = new Blob([full_svg], {type: "image/svg+xml"});  
		saveAs(blob, "graph.svg");
	})
};
save_as_svg();
</script>

The above code read your chart.css and then embed the css code to your svg file.

Solution 8 - Javascript

In my scenario, I had to use some svg images created using D3.js in other projects. So I opened dev tools and inspected those svg and copied their content. Then created a new blank svg file and pasted the copied content there. Then I used those new svg files in other areas.

And if you want to do it programmatically, then we can use document.getElementById('svgId')

I know this is a basic approach but in case anyone find it useful.

Solution 9 - Javascript

I try this and worked for me.

function downloadSvg() {

var svg = document.getElementById("svg");
var serializer = new XMLSerializer();
var source = serializer.serializeToString(svg);
source = source.replace(/(\w+)?:?xlink=/g, 'xmlns:xlink='); // Fix root xlink without namespace

source = source.replace(/ns\d+:href/g, 'xlink:href'); // Safari NS namespace fix.


if (!source.match(/^<svg[^>]+xmlns="http\:\/\/www\.w3\.org\/2000\/svg"/)) {
    source = source.replace(/^<svg/, '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"');
}
if (!source.match(/^<svg[^>]+"http\:\/\/www\.w3\.org\/1999\/xlink"/)) {
    source = source.replace(/^<svg/, '<svg xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"');
}


var preface = '<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>\r\n';
var svgBlob = new Blob([preface, source], { type: "image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8" });
var svgUrl = URL.createObjectURL(svgBlob);
var downloadLink = document.createElement("a");
downloadLink.href = svgUrl;
downloadLink.download = name;
document.body.appendChild(downloadLink);
downloadLink.click();
document.body.removeChild(downloadLink);

}

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Vanquiza	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Javascript	defghi1977	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Javascript	DaveTheScientist	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Javascript	senz	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Javascript	Vasyl Vaskivskyi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Javascript	Ludovic Feltz	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Javascript	Coola	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Javascript	Feng Jiang	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Javascript	kushal	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Javascript	Salar Afshar	View Answer on Stackoverflow