What iLovePDF actually does
The tool list on ilovepdf.com runs to thirty entries. Merge, split, compress, crop, rotate, organize, repair, unlock, protect, sign, watermark, redact, page numbers, forms, OCR, compare, translate and summarize, plus a newer page for pulling markdown out of a PDF. The conversion pages are PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and JPG, and Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG and HTML to PDF. There are desktop and mobile apps too.
Every tool on that list has a PDF on at least one side of it. The two that touch ordinary pictures are JPG to PDF and PDF to JPG, and both treat the image as page content rather than as an image. There is no picture to picture conversion at all, so a PNG cannot become a JPG there either. SVG is missing in both directions.
None of that is a fault. iLovePDF does its own job well, and the query it keeps answering for sits outside that job.
Where the name confusion comes from
Three site names start with the same five characters, and people remember the first one they used.
iLoveIMG is the image site, with thirteen tools: convert to JPG, JPG to image, HTML to image, resize, crop, rotate, compress, upscale, remove background, watermark, blur faces, a meme generator and a photo editor. Every conversion there stays inside raster formats. A PNG or a HEIC becomes a JPG and the chain stops.
iLoveSVG is a different site, and it does have a PNG to SVG converter and a JPG to SVG converter. That is likely to be the tool someone wanted when they typed iLovePDF into the box, and it is not the same site as the PDF one.
The two directions under this name are worth separating, because they are different jobs that get filed under one word. Turning a picture into paths is a modelling problem. Turning an SVG into a PNG is a rendering problem, and it is the easier of the two.
Why a PDF toolkit is the wrong shape for this
Trace a picture and something has to look at the pixels and decide which ones belong together, where each region ends, and how much detail the boundary is worth. That is a harder job than most of what a PDF site does, where a conversion usually means re-wrapping content that is already vector or already text.
PDF and SVG both hold paths, so PDF to SVG conversion does exist. It lives in vector editors such as Inkscape and Illustrator, and in command line tools, and what it moves is a page: fonts, strokes, page boxes. Change the input to a PNG and there is nothing to move. A PNG is pixels with no paths in it, so every path has to be invented from the picture.
PNG or JPG to SVG
That invention is what the PNG to SVG converter does. A deep-learning model reads the image region by region and decides what is actually there, then the geometry comes back as editable paths. Transparency survives the trip, you can see the traced result before you download it, and nothing is stamped on the file. The image is uploaded once to the tracing engine, the temporary copy on your machine is deleted when the conversion finishes, and the engine clears its own copy within a day. Only the traced shapes come back.
Flat artwork is where it works best: logos, icons, line drawings, lettering, stickers, and the flat shapes people cut from vinyl. Photographs are the wrong input. A photo traces into thousands of small shapes that read as a smudged copy of the original, and in that case the PNG was the better file to keep.
If the source is a JPEG rather than a PNG, use the JPG to SVG converter. Same tracer, and that page covers the compression artefacts a JPEG brings with it, including the blocky edges that turn into wobbly paths if you trace them.
SVG to PNG or JPG
For the other direction there is the SVG to PNG converter, which runs inside your browser. Your file is measured, drawn onto a canvas at the size you choose, and encoded as a PNG or a JPG on your own machine. Nothing is uploaded, which matters when the artwork belongs to a client.
The size is the one decision worth making before you export. A raster file holds a fixed number of pixels, and a PNG exported at 300 by 300 cannot be enlarged later without going soft. The page takes a scale from 1x to 8x and writes out the pixel size before you commit to it. PNG keeps transparency, and JPG comes out smaller when the background does not matter.
What iLovePDF is still good for
Keep using it for the work it was built around. Merging a stack of scans, splitting one document into several, compressing a PDF that will not fit in an email, pulling text into Word, and running OCR over a scan all hold up well there, and none of them involves vector paths.
One case does get tempting. If you have a PDF of a logo, wanting an SVG out of it is reasonable, and a vector editor can do it properly because the paths are already inside the PDF. What does not work is screenshotting the logo and tracing the screenshot. That route throws away the clean edges the PDF was carrying, so the result cannot match the file you started with. If the original artwork still exists somewhere, ask for it first.
Questions that come up
Does iLovePDF convert PNG to SVG?
No. The only image conversions on the site are JPG to PDF and PDF to JPG. For this direction you need a tracer, which is a different kind of tool.
Does iLovePDF convert SVG to PNG?
No. Nothing in its tool list reads an SVG file. The SVG to PNG page does that one in your browser, without uploading anything.
Is iLoveSVG the same site as iLovePDF?
No. iLoveSVG is a separate site with its own converter, and the similar name is why the two get searched for interchangeably.
Can I convert a PDF to SVG anywhere?
Vector editors can, and the output follows the page layout. That works when the artwork inside the PDF was vector to begin with. A scan or a screenshot is pixels again, and it traces like any other picture, with the quality of the screenshot as the ceiling.
Will a traced SVG open as layers in Illustrator?
You get paths grouped by shape and colour, so moving and recolouring them works. Text inside the picture comes back as outlines, because the tracer sees shapes and not letters. If you need live text, the original font is the only source of it.
Is the conversion free?
Yes. The PNG to SVG, JPG to SVG and SVG to PNG converters all run free in the browser and need no install.