SVG Text does not render in 3.8.1

[jkrrv]

Hello,

My apologies if I should be submitting this to the ImageMagick issues instead--happy to do so; let me know.

A recent update broke a framework I maintain that, among other things, uses Imagick to convert SVGs to PNGs.

Release Date: 2026-01-18
ImageMagick 7.1.2-13 Q16 x86_64 2fae24192:20260118 https://imagemagick.org

I have the following test fragment.

function svgToPng($svgContent, ?string $backgroundColor = null): string
{
    $svg = new DOMDocument();
    $svg->loadXML($svgContent);

    // won't work without xmlns.  This makes sure it's present.
    $svg->documentElement->setAttribute('xmlns', 'http://www.w3.org/2000/svg');

    // Test if Imagick is available
    if (!extension_loaded('imagick')) {
        throw new Exception('Imagick extension is not available');
    }

    if (count(\Imagick::queryFormats('SVG')) < 1) {
        throw new Exception('Imagick on this server does not support SVG');
    }

    $im = new \Imagick();
    $im->setResolution(300, 300);

    if (!empty($backgroundColor)) {
        try {
            $pxColor = new \ImagickPixel($backgroundColor);
            $im->setBackgroundColor($pxColor);
        } catch (\ImagickPixelException) {
            $im->setBackgroundColor(new \ImagickPixel('transparent'));
        }
    } else {
        $im->setBackgroundColor(new \ImagickPixel('transparent'));
    }

    $im->readImageBlob($svg->saveXML());

    $im->setImageAlphaChannel(\Imagick::ALPHACHANNEL_ACTIVATE);

    $im = $im->mergeImageLayers(\Imagick::LAYERMETHOD_FLATTEN);

    if (!$im->setImageFormat('png')) {
        throw new Exception('Failed to set image format as png');
    }

    return $im->getImageBlob();
}



header("Content-Type: image/png");
echo svgToPng("<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' width='200' height='200'>
  <text x='10' y='40' font-size='30' fill='black'>Hello, World!</text>
  </svg>
  ");

In this particular version, this results in:

Expected output: (and actual output on older versions)

Please let me know what I can/should do to either fix this or diagnose it further. My users generally don't have control over extensions installed on their servers, so this is a significant challenge.

Thanks!

[Danack]

What I would recommend doing is trying to replicate the issue using the ImageMagick command line tools, and then report it to the ImageMagick people.

Imagick is just a think wrapper around ImageMagick. There's nothing I can normally do to fix issues like this.

btw. I pretty strongly recommend using Inkscape to do SVG conversion to PNG. Because of issues like this.