By default, SnipSVG uses the SVG format to save your edited screenshots. So why do we emphasize this image format and why is is better than a regular PNG or JPEG image?

There are basically 3 features that make SVG unique.

1. SVG remains sharp and crisp at all zoom levels

On a typical Windows PC with a standard display you might not notice much of a difference. On high-resolution devices, the difference matters. This can be a Retina display, a laser printout, a PDF file or someone simply zooms in on an image in their web browser.

Here are two examples, one regular JPEG image (in the background) and the SVG version (foreground). Both at 100% and 300% zoom level:

2. Compact size and accessibility

In SVG all added elements are basically drawing instructions that the web browser executes at run time. A drawing command needs less bytes to draw at the same quality at all zoom levels.

Text remains text. The content of callouts and text objects is really text, which is fully accessible to screen readers. In SnipSVG, every element may have instructional title/alt tags which are displayed by the web browser when you hover the mouse over the object. This makes SVG images much more accessible to visually impaired users, especially in combination with high zoom levels.

3. Elements are editable and translatable

When was the last time you had to correct an annotation in a screenshot because of a typo and had to start all over again? Did you wish you could simply translate the text to create a localized version?

With SVG you can. Individual elements are editable objects, text is text. Just re-open the SVG image and edit the content to make it fit. The SVG format is perfect for both, as source image format and distribution format.

Of course, you can also do all this with SnipSVG's own SnipX format as well.

So what are SVG vector images really?

You are probably most familiar with photographs, which are stored and displayed as a matrix of tiny dots called pixels. If you have a small photo and try to zoom it larger, it looks fuzzy because it doesn't have so many pixels. Images like photographs are also called "bitmaps", because they are a "map", or matrix, of "bits", or pixels.

"Vector" images are different. Instead of being stored as pixels they are stored as mathematical formulas describing how the lines, curves and shapes making them up must be drawn. This means that no matter how large a vector image is displayed, it always looks perfectly sharp — the formula uses as many pixels as it needs to draw it. And since formulas are much more compact than bitmaps, vector image files are also very small.

SVG is a standard format for vector images that is compatible with all modern web browsers and many graphics programs. In addition to storing vector shapes it can also store bitmap images and even other SVG images, which can even have simple animations. Not only that, it can also contain formatted text and many other features. This makes it perfect for screenshots, which generally consist of a bitmap image of your screen along with arrows, text bubbles, numbering stamps and so on, which can all be stored as vector images.