Save and Export

You can save your work or export it to various image formats.

Save Your Image

Choose File > Save from the menu bar.
If the document was previously saved, it will save automatically. Otherwise, a dialog will appear asking you to choose a file name, location, and format.

Export Your Image

Choose File > Export… or File > Save As… to save a copy of your document in a different format or location.

Save Panel Options

When you save or export, the save panel includes an accessory view with extra options:

  • File Format: A pop-up menu of all supported formats. Paint Document is always the default first choice.
  • Quality: For JPEG and WebP, a slider controls the compression quality. The value is remembered from the last export.
  • Use Opacity: For PNG and TIFF, a checkbox that controls whether the transparency information is saved. It is on by default.
  • SVG options: When SVG is selected, three checkboxes appear—Text to Outlines, Maximum Compatibility, and White Background. See Export as SVG.
  • PDF options: When PDF is selected, choose Vector or Bitmap—Vector keeps your shapes and gradients as real vector graphics, Bitmap flattens the canvas into a single picture. The choice is remembered from one export to the next. See Export as PDF.
  • Estimated file size: The panel shows an estimate of the output size that updates as you change the format and options. No estimate is shown for SVG or PDF, because their size depends on the document contents rather than the canvas size.

Tips

The first time you choose a format other than Paint Document, the app suggests keeping the working project as a Paint Document so all objects stay editable.

Supported Formats

Paint S supports the following formats:

  • Paint Document (.paint)
  • PNG
  • JPEG
  • TIFF
  • BMP
  • WebP
  • PDF
  • GIF
  • SVG

These formats are divided into two main categories:

  • Paint Document: The default, native format of the app. It preserves all your objects and layers, allowing you to fully re-edit them later. It is highly recommended to save your working project in this format before exporting it for sharing.

    Tips

    If your document uses any of the built-in fonts, they are embedded in the .paint file automatically, so it renders correctly even on Macs that don't have those fonts installed.

  • Common Image Formats (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, WebP, PDF, GIF): Standard formats that can be opened by other apps and web browsers. Use these formats when you want to share your image or use it elsewhere.

    Tips

    Exported GIFs contain a single still frame (animated GIFs are not created), and exported PDFs contain a single page.

SVG and PDF are the formats that can also keep your drawing as vector graphics instead of flattening it to pixels: SVG always does, and PDF does it by default (choose Bitmap there to flatten it). See Export as SVG and Export as PDF below.

Tips

JPEG and BMP formats do not support transparency (alpha channel), so transparent areas will not be preserved when exporting. To keep a transparent background, export your image as PNG, TIFF, WebP, or SVG.

Export as SVG

Choose SVG in the format pop-up to export a scalable vector copy of your document—crisp at any size, with your objects and layers preserved as editable SVG elements. Lines, shapes, and text are written as real vector paths and live text, so design apps like Figma, Illustrator, and Inkscape can re-edit them. Images you pasted into the document are embedded inside the SVG file, so the export is always a single self-contained file.

Some objects can't be expressed in SVG and are always exported as embedded images: photos and pasted images, airbrush strokes, bucket fills, filter effects, curved text, objects painted with a pattern, and skewed, distorted, or perspective-warped objects. Eraser marks are preserved as SVG masks. When your document contains such objects, the save panel tells you up front (“N objects will be exported as images”), and after the export a one-time summary lists what changed—you can turn that summary off.

SVG has no way to describe a tiled image, so any object with a pattern fill or pattern stroke is exported as an image rendered from your canvas. The pattern itself stays exact—Opacity, Scale, Angle, and Phase all carry over—while the object is no longer an editable vector path. The image is rendered at your document's pixel size — or up to three times that on documents with a higher DPI — so zooming past the size it was rendered at won't make it crisper. A text object with a pattern becomes an image too, which means it loses its live, editable text.

The three options (also shown in a popover when you click ⓘ next to them) are remembered for future exports:

  • Text to Outlines: Converts text to vector shapes so it looks the same on any computer, even without the font installed. The text can no longer be edited or searched, and the file grows.
  • Maximum Compatibility: Draws shadows, inner shadows, and reflections as images so they look identical in every app. By default they are exported as native SVG effects, which older viewers may render slightly differently.
  • White Background: Paints a white rectangle behind the drawing. By default the SVG background is transparent; turn this on for viewers that display transparency as black.

Tips

Exporting SVG requires the full-featured version—SVG can't carry a watermark, so it's gated on the upgrade rather than on image size. In the free version, SVG stays listed in the format pop-up, but selecting it opens an upgrade prompt and cancels the export. See FAQ.

Export as PDF

Choose PDF in the format pop-up, then pick Vector or Bitmap. Vector is the default, and the panel remembers your last choice.

  • Vector writes lines, shapes, and gradients as real PDF drawing commands, so they stay sharp at any zoom or print size, and a pattern stays a real tiled fill instead of becoming a picture.
  • Bitmap exports the canvas as a single picture at the document's own resolution. Zooming in can look soft; switch back to Vector when you need crisp edges.

The page follows the document's resolution, so the PDF measures the same in inches as a PNG exported from the same document. Whether it looks the same size as your canvas depends on the PDF viewer's zoom settings and on your display, not on the export.

Some objects can't be expressed as PDF drawing commands, so they are exported as pictures even when you choose Vector: photos and pasted images, filter effects, airbrush strokes, imported SVG content, and objects that are skewed, distorted, or perspective-warped.

Text splits two ways. Plain text—solid color, fully opaque, no effects—is written as real PDF text, so it stays sharp at any zoom and can be selected and searched. Text is exported as a picture when its characters are filled with a gradient or a pattern, when it has a text outline, a shadow, a reflection, or an inner shadow, when its opacity is below 100%, when it is underlined or struck through, when it carries a background color that came in by pasting, when it is curved text, or when it is skewed, distorted, or perspective-warped; such text stays sharp at print size but can't be selected or searched.

When your document contains objects that export as pictures, the save panel tells you up front (“N objects stay editable as vectors · M objects will be exported as images”).

Two kinds of documents are always exported as one image, because PDF has no equivalent of the canvas blending they rely on. In both cases Vector is greyed out and the reason appears next to it:

  • the document contains an Eraser or Clear layer, or a bucket fill that isn't fully opaque;
  • the canvas is masked by its background image.

If the vector export itself runs into a problem part of the way, the file is finished as a bitmap and you're told that it was.

Tips

Exporting PDF requires the full-featured version. In the free version, PDF stays listed in the format pop-up, but selecting it opens an upgrade prompt and cancels the export. See FAQ.

Duplicate and Revert

  • File > Duplicate (⇧⌘S) creates an unsaved copy of the current document as a Paint Document, leaving the original untouched.
  • File > Revert to Saved restores an earlier state of your document. It browses the automatic saves created while you work, which requires the full-featured version with the Autosave documents option enabled. See Settings.