Working With Documents
Axialis IconVectors offers several ways to open, save, and export SVG icons, ensuring seamless integration with your development and design workflows. It also includes a helpful shell extension to improve icon browsing in Windows Explorer.
The embedded Icon Explorer keeps the current Editor document open while you browse SVG thumbnails. Editor-only panes, including Preview and Layers, are hidden in Explorer and restored when you return to Editor. Opening a tile uses the normal document identity and unsaved-change workflow, with optional automatic saving for Explorer-origin icons.
Vector-Based Documents
Axialis IconVectors uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format. This means icons that you can edit with IconVectors are composed of paths, shapes, and other vector elements rather than pixels. The key benefit is that your artwork can scale to any size without losing clarity or sharpness.
Supported File Formats
Axialis IconVectors works with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files, a widely adopted standard for vector-based drawings. The application is optimized for editing small vector assets such as icons. Large editing canvases require resizing, and unsupported SVG constructs may not be editable.
When you create or save a document in IconVectors, it is stored in SVG format. This ensures compatibility with a wide range of tools and platforms, including web browsers, development frameworks, and other design software.
Note
While you can export/generate your icons in other formats such as XAML, WPF Geometry, VectorDrawable, SwiftUI, VueTS, or bitmap images (PNG, ICO, BMP, etc.), the application can only open SVG files as input.
Supported export formats include:
XAML – For use in WPF or UWP applications
WPF Geometry – Geometry path output for WPF pipelines
VectorDrawable – Android vector XML output
SwiftUI – SwiftUI path-based code output
VueTS / ReactTS – For integration in JavaScript frameworks
C++ – Vector paths converted to code
Minified SVG – Compact version of the icon source
Bitmap formats – PNG, ICO, BMP, JPG, TIFF, and more
This approach keeps the editing workflow simple and standards-based, while still offering great flexibility for deployment across different platforms and environments.
Working with Documents
Creating a New Icon Document
To create a new SVG icon, select or press Ctrl+N.
In this dialog, you can define the icon’s width and height in pixels. Enable Keep Aspect Ratio to maintain proportions. You can also choose to set this size as the default for new documents.
Two options below Keep Aspect Ratio control this icon’s SVG output:
Responsive Icon (for use with CSS) keeps the
viewBoxand omits rootwidthandheightso CSS can set the displayed size. Clear it to use explicit dimensions matching the chosen canvas.Embed Styles in Icon starts with an empty shared
<style>section, ready for creating and assigning styles under Styles → This Icon. Drawing normally still uses local element properties until you create or assign shared styles.
Both start from the defaults in Preferences → SVG Code. Your choices apply only to the new icon; they do not change Preferences, even when Set As Default is checked. That checkbox saves the canvas size only. You can change responsive output later through Responsive Icon and remove the stylesheet with Remove Embedded Styles.
Choose the SVG output options for this icon without changing your defaults.
The Name field starts focused and selected. Enter the name and press Enter to create the icon. When you start from Explorer, New Icon, and Ctrl+N all remember the current Explorer folder as the initial location for Save or Save As. Browsing to another folder afterward does not change that remembered location. Creating the document alone writes no file.
Opening an Icon Document
To open an existing SVG icon, use the menu command. Once opened, the icon is fully editable.
– Ctrl+O
– Ctrl+Alt+O
The default-on Strict SVG syntax checking (2.20+) preference checks the original source before import. Definite malformed SVG values block loading and can be repaired; unknown names, suspected typos and valid unsupported features are warnings. For warnings alone, use Edit SVG Source…, Open Icon As Is to continue despite them, or Cancel. Open Icon As Is is the warning message’s initial Enter-default action. Its optional Don’t show SVG warnings again (disable strict checking) checkbox turns off the same preference only when a source-review or open action is accepted; cancelling leaves the preference unchanged. See SVG warning-message choices for restoration and the effect on future loads. The importer still determines which SVG features are editable. This Editor-loading preference does not add blocking checks to batch processing.
An SVG can specify a small output size but a much larger coordinate system in
its viewBox. Oversized-canvas conversion (2.10+) checks both the editing
canvas and any explicitly authored output dimensions when opening it:
If the editing canvas is oversized but the SVG has a valid absolute
width/heightpair of at most 1024 pixels per axis, IconVectors converts the canvas and artwork to those exact output dimensions automatically, without a size prompt. For example, a 32000-by-32000viewBoxwith a 32-by-32-pixel output size opens on a 32-by-32 editing canvas.If an oversized canvas has no usable absolute pair (one dimension is missing, relative or invalid), IconVectors asks before fitting it proportionally within 1024-by-1024. Declining leaves the current document unchanged.
If the authored output size itself exceeds the limit, confirmation is required even when the
viewBoxis small. The conversion fits the authored viewport proportionally within 1024-by-1024 and updates both output size and editing canvas, preserving the supported SVG viewport mapping.
During conversion, percentages are resolved against the original canvas.
Supported paints, gradients, strokes and preserveAspectRatio behavior are
preserved; unsupported conversions are rejected rather than approximated.
Converted content uses at most four decimal places without changing your global
precision preference or unrelated imports. Opening never overwrites the source
file; save only after reviewing the result.
Gradients are converted together with the artwork. Different painted surfaces can legitimately use separate gradient definitions. Conversion reuses a compatible definitions block and removes replaced gradient copies only when they are no longer referenced; it preserves definitions still needed by other artwork or inherited gradients.
Supported embedded CSS rules are read from ordinary stylesheet text or CDATA sections and resolved before shapes are converted for editing. Saving writes ordinary SVG paint attributes, including gradient definitions and stop colors when present, rather than depending on the original CDATA stylesheet. This does not load external stylesheets or add support for every browser CSS feature.
Hint
If no icon is currently open, you can drag and drop an SVG file from Windows File Explorer directly into the workspace.
Repairing an SVG that fails to open
For a readable source file, an open error offers Edit SVG Source…. The Repair SVG Source dialog displays the original text, locates errors and warnings and checks your edits. Errors block Load Icon; warnings alone allow it. Load Icon then runs the normal import and canvas-size handling. Cancelling repair or a failed import leaves the current Editor document and original file intact.
A successfully loaded repair is marked modified and remembers the original path. Its first save must be explicit, including when Auto Save Icons is enabled. Use Save As to preserve the rejected original separately. If the original changes on disk before the first save, resolve the conflict before replacing it. See Saving a repaired icon.
Saving an Icon Document
Use (Ctrl+S) to save the current icon, or (Ctrl+Shift+S) to choose another name or folder. An unnamed icon first needs a destination.
Before replacing the loaded file, IconVectors checks that its disk version still matches the version you opened or last saved. Changes made by another program, replacement of the file, or deletion cannot silently be overwritten. If a conflict is found, you can save a separate copy, explicitly replace the observed disk version with Replace Original, or cancel. If the source changes again while you are deciding, the replacement is stopped and must be reviewed again.
An unreadable source is not treated as an unchanged file. If its original disk version cannot be verified, use Save As to preserve the edited icon separately. Recreating a deleted original requires Recreate Original; a file that appears at that path in the meantime is not silently replaced.
Saving All Open Icons
— Ctrl+Alt+S
Save All saves modified icons in compatible windows running the same IconVectors executable and version, under your current user account on this computer. Windows from a different installed copy, test build or older version are not included. Each window still edits one icon; this command does not create document tabs. Windows opened after Save All starts are not added to the current run. This window-to-window saving is independent of the MCP server, bridge port and MCP configuration; MCP does not need to be enabled or connected.
Save All remains available when the current icon is unchanged, so you can save edits in other compatible windows. It is temporarily unavailable while drawing, closing or another conflicting operation is in progress. Opening the File menu does not scan other windows; the participating windows are discovered when you run the command.
Successful saves finish without a completion summary, whether one window or several windows were processed. A run with nothing to save also finishes quietly. Save As, conflict decisions and genuine saving errors still use their normal dialogs.
Across several windows, icons are processed one at a time in their owning windows. An unnamed document opens Save As, and an externally changed file requires the same explicit conflict decision as an ordinary Save. Bring the owning window forward if it is waiting for your response.
Cancelling a save stops the remaining requests. Files already saved stay saved; Save All does not roll them back. A progress window appears only when waiting takes longer, avoiding a flash for quick replies.
If a run encounters a problem or is cancelled, the report distinguishes successful saves, unchanged documents, failures, busy windows, unavailable or unconfirmed results, and windows not processed. A busy or unresponsive window is never reported as saved. A genuine failure to coordinate the windows is reported rather than treated as a successful save of every open icon; save any unverified windows individually.
Cancelling the waiting/progress dialog cannot undo a save that another window has already accepted. That save may still be running and its result is then unconfirmed, not counted as saved. Check the owning window before retrying or starting another save. Review all incomplete results rather than assuming that every open icon was written.
Reverting to the Saved Version
Choose to reload the current icon from its existing file. This command is available only for a modified icon that already has a filename. It is disabled for unchanged or unnamed icons, and while drawing, dragging or another document operation is in progress. There is no default keyboard shortcut. Revert reads the disk file without writing it. To preserve your current edits first, use Save As with a different name.
If the icon has unsaved edits, you must explicitly confirm discarding them. IconVectors checks and prepares the replacement before adopting it, then verifies that the disk file has not changed again. Cancelling, a missing or unreadable source, invalid SVG, or a failed import leaves your current artwork, modified state, selection and Undo history intact.
If strict SVG checks report warnings in the saved source, choose Reload As Is to continue or Cancel to retain your current document. Errors still prevent loading; warning acceptance does not write or repair the source file.
A successful reload clears the selection and Undo/Redo history: you cannot Undo back to the discarded document. Icons opened from Explorer retain their Explorer association and return location, including Previous/Next navigation and eligibility for its optional Auto Save setting.
Changes Made by Other Programs
IconVectors checks a named open icon about every two seconds while its Editor window is active, and when you return to that window. These notices are deferred while you browse Explorer. Checks distinguish changed contents, replacement of the disk file, deletion and an unreadable source. Prompts wait until an ongoing drawing gesture or modal operation has finished.
For a changed file, choose how to proceed:
Reload from Disk reads the current disk version. Unsaved edits require a separate discard confirmation; a failed or cancelled reload leaves them intact. This external-change action can also reload an unchanged icon, even though the manual Revert to Saved command is disabled for that icon.
Save As… preserves your in-memory icon under another name or location.
Keep Editing leaves the current artwork and its Undo history untouched.
A missing or unreadable file does not close or clear the icon in memory. Restore access to the original or use Save As. The same observed change is not repeatedly announced, but a newly changed disk version can produce another notice.
Keeping your edits or dismissing a notice is not permission to overwrite the disk file later. Save still checks the version originally loaded or last successfully saved, and asks you to resolve a conflict before replacing newer work. Explorer automatic saving and noninteractive MCP saves stop on these conflicts rather than selecting an overwrite decision for you. See save-conflict troubleshooting.
Closing an Icon Document
To close the current document, select:
– Ctrl+W
If the document has unsaved changes, you’ll be prompted to save them before closing. An icon opened or created from Explorer returns to the retained Explorer folder, selection and scroll position; other documents leave an empty Editor. An icon explicitly opened in a separate window does not inherit the originating window’s Explorer session.
With the Editor canvas idle, Escape closes the icon through the same workflow. While drawing, editing text or using a dialog, Escape cancels that interaction without also closing the document.
Saving While Browsing Explorer (2.10+)
is off by default. When enabled,
opening another Explorer icon in the same window first saves the modified
Explorer-opened or Explorer-created icon. A new icon uses its name and .svg
in the remembered folder. A name collision requires an explicit Save As
decision; an unavailable folder, write failure or externally changed source
stops the switch so you can save manually.
A document loaded through SVG source repair requires its first explicit successful save before this automatic-saving rule applies.
This setting does not save on a timer, on workspace switching, on Close or on Exit. It is separate from crash recovery below. See The Icon Explorer for the complete workflow.
Opening a Recent Icon Document
Recently used documents appear in the Open Recent Files list, allowing you to reopen them quickly:
On Windows, file paths in history, labels, tooltips and messages use ordinary drive or network-path notation. This display cleanup does not rename files or change support for long paths and network shares.
When no document is open, the empty Editor shows New Icon (Ctrl+N), Open File (Ctrl+O), Open Recent (Ctrl+R), and Open Explorer (F5). Each complete row is clickable, including its shortcut-cap area, and invokes the same existing command as the menu or keyboard shortcut. These actions are active only while the empty Editor start screen is displayed.
Multiple Documents Support
You can open multiple IconVectors instances at once. This allows you to:
Work on several icon documents in parallel
Copy/paste elements between documents
Compare icons side-by-side
To open a new Icon Editor instance:
- Shift+Ctrl+N
To open an independent instance directly in Explorer with no SVG Editor document open:
- Shift+F5
To open a SVG document in a new window:
- Ctrl+Alt+O
Each window operates independently, but shares access to the clipboard and preferences. Starting an Explorer window does not switch or block the originating instance.
Use Save All to save modified icons across compatible open windows. Each icon retains its own Save As prompts, external-change checks and Undo history; Save All does not merge documents into one workspace.
Hint
Each SVG file that you open via the Windows File Explorer is displayed in a separate instance. This lets you work on several documents simultaneously.
Shell Extension for SVG Thumbnails
Select Windows Explorer SVG thumbnails and previews on Windows setup’s Install Axialis IconVectors Extensions page to enable this optional component. Setup handles registration automatically for the 32-bit or 64-bit edition.
This feature:
Displays a live preview of each SVG icon
Works in all folder views (thumbnails, tiles, list, etc.)
Makes it easier to browse and organize icon collections
Hint
To enable the extension later, run setup again and select its thumbnail option. See Windows thumbnail registration troubleshooting if setup reports a registration error.
Automatic Recovery System
Axialis IconVectors includes an Automatic Recovery System designed to help you avoid data loss in case of unexpected shutdowns or crashes.
Your work is automatically saved in the background at regular intervals. If the application is closed unexpectedly, you’ll be prompted to recover your last unsaved work the next time you launch the application.
This ensures that even if you haven’t manually saved your icon, your recent edits won’t be lost.
You can adjust how frequently your work is saved in the background:
Open - F2
In the General tab, locate the Auto-Recovery Interval option
Set the desired time in seconds
The shorter the interval, the more recent your recovered data will be in case of a failure.