SCOUR(1)

📦 version 0.38.2, in debian trixie, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

👑 SCOUR(1) — the User Commands manual page, but make it fashion 💅

okay bestie, sit down, we're learning scour today and honestly? it's giving glow-up for your SVG files ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

scour — optimize and clean SVG files 🧹💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

scour [INPUT.SVG [OUTPUT.SVG]] [OPTIONS]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So. Scour is an SVG optimizer/cleaner, and what it does is shrink your scalable vector graphics by optimizing the structure and yeeting all the unnecessary data. no cap. 🗑️✨

The whole goal, the vision, the main character energy here: output a file that renders identically but at a fraction of the size, by removing a LOT of redundant information that basically every SVG editor on earth leaves lying around like laundry on the floor 🙈

The optimization options are typically lossless, but bestie you can tweak them for more aggressive cleaning if you're feeling bold 🔥

If you don't specify the input/output files, then stdin/stdout get used instead. And if the input/output files are specified with a svgz extension, then compressed SVG is assumed 🫶

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --version — show the program's version number and exit 👋
  • -h, --help — show this help message and exit 🆘
  • -q, --quiet — suppress non-error output 🤫
  • -v, --verbose — verbose output (statistics, etc.) 📊
  • -i INPUT.SVG — alternative way to specify the input filename 📥
  • -o OUTPUT.SVG — alternative way to specify the output filename 📤

🎀 Optimization 🎀

  • --set-precision=NUM — set number of significant digits (default: 5) 🔢
  • --set-c-precision=NUM — set number of significant digits for control points (default: same as --set-precision) 🎯
  • --disable-simplify-colors — won't convert colors to #RRGGBB format 🎨
  • --disable-style-to-xml — won't convert styles into XML attributes 🖌️
  • --disable-group-collapsing — won't collapse <g> elements 🫂
  • --create-groups — create <g> elements for runs of elements with identical attributes 🧩
  • --keep-editor-data — won't remove Inkscape, Sodipodi, Adobe Illustrator or Sketch elements and attributes 🏢
  • --keep-unreferenced-defs — won't remove elements within the defs container that are unreferenced 📦
  • --renderer-workaround — work around various renderer bugs (currently only librsvg) (default) 🛠️
  • --no-renderer-workaround — do not work around various renderer bugs (currently only librsvg) 🙅

🌈 SVG document 🌈

  • --strip-xml-prolog — won't output the XML prolog (<?xml ?>) ✂️
  • --remove-titles — remove <title> elements 🏷️
  • --remove-descriptions — remove <desc> elements 📝
  • --remove-metadata — remove <metadata> elements (which may contain license/author information etc.) 🗂️
⚠️ okay so heads up, --remove-metadata can take your license/author info with it. be normal about that, bestie.
  • --remove-descriptive-elements — remove <title>, <desc> and <metadata> elements 🧼
  • --enable-comment-stripping — remove all comments (<!-- -->) 💬
  • --disable-embed-rasters — won't embed rasters as base64-encoded data 🖼️
  • --enable-viewboxing — changes document width/height to 100%/100% and creates viewbox coordinates 📐

💖 Output formatting 💖

  • --indent=TYPE — indentation of the output: none, space, tab (default: space) ⬜
  • --nindent=NUM — depth of the indentation, i.e. number of spaces/tabs: (default: 1) 📏
  • --no-line-breaks — do not create line breaks in output (also disables indentation; might be overridden by xml:space="preserve") 🚫
  • --strip-xml-space — strip the xml:space="preserve" attribute from the root SVG element 🧽

🫶 ID attributes 🫶

  • --enable-id-stripping — remove all unreferenced IDs 🪪
  • --shorten-ids — shorten all IDs to the least number of letters possible 🔤
  • --shorten-ids-prefix=PREFIX — add custom prefix to shortened IDs 🏷️
  • --protect-ids-noninkscape — don't remove IDs not ending with a digit 🔒
  • --protect-ids-list=LIST — don't remove IDs given in this comma-separated list 📋
  • --protect-ids-prefix=PREFIX — don't remove IDs starting with the given prefix 🛡️

⭐ SVG compatibility checks ⭐

  • --error-on-flowtext — exit with error if the input SVG uses nonstandard flowing text (only warn by default) 🚨

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

Standard, the classic, the moment:

scour -i input.svg -o output.svg

For better compatibility with web browsers 🌐:

scour -i input.svg -o output.svg --enable-viewboxing

Maximum scrubbing 🧼✨:

scour -i input.svg -o output.svg --enable-viewboxing --enable-id-stripping \
  --enable-comment-stripping --shorten-ids --indent=none

Maximum scrubbing AND a compressed SVGZ file 📦💅:

scour -i input.svg -o output.svgz --enable-viewboxing --enable-id-stripping \
  --enable-comment-stripping --shorten-ids --indent=none

Jeff Schiller, Louis Simard, 2010 🫡

📖 MAN PAGE 📖

Enkelena Haxhija (EnkelenaH) has produced this man page from the upstream README and the --help output for Debian with the help of pandoc(1) and help2man(1). The latter is executed at build time so --help output and this man page should stay consistent 🧠✨

okay that's the whole thing, bestie, go forth and shrink those SVGs 🌸🦋 this was scour version 0.38.2, dated May 2025 — mwah, slay, periodt 💖👑

📦 where this page comes from