Why this exists
A printer asks for a vector logo and receives a file with the right extension that turns out to hold a photograph of a logo. This is nobody's fault. The extension does not describe what is inside, most viewers display both cases identically, and the person sending it had no way to check. The job then prints soft, or somebody has to write an awkward email a week before a deadline.
Every existing way to check involved either professional software or uploading a client's artwork to a stranger's server. Vecpath is the check that was missing: no software, no upload, and an answer in about a second.
What it does differently
Most checkers count elements. If a file contains any path objects at all, they report vector. That is the wrong question. A file holding one full bleed embedded photograph plus a stray zero-size rectangle left behind by an export does contain a path, and it will still print exactly as badly as the photograph would.
The question that matters is how much of the visible ink is resolution independent. So anything hidden, fully transparent, zero-sized or positioned outside the canvas is discarded before anything is judged, and what remains is measured as a share of the artwork. It is why a file can be reported here as a bitmap in disguise even though it technically contains vector elements.
It also shows its working. Every verdict arrives with the counts behind it and a magnified view of the file, so the answer can be confirmed rather than trusted.
What it will not do
- Upload your file. There is no server to upload it to, and no version of this is planned in which there is. See privacy.
- Guess. A file it cannot fully inspect is reported as unverifiable rather than given a confident answer that might be wrong. A wrong green is far more damaging than an honest "I cannot tell".
- Ask for an account, an email address or a payment. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to buy.
Where it is honest about its limits
EPS is PostScript, which is a programming language rather than a description of a page, so a file can compute artwork while it runs that appears nowhere in its text. Reading an untrusted file without executing it is the right way to inspect one, and it is correct about ordinary artwork, but it is why an EPS verdict here says almost certainly rather than yes.
CorelDRAW, Sketch and Affinity files are recognised and named but not inspected, so they are reported as unverifiable rather than guessed at. Font embedding is not checked yet, which is the most useful thing still missing: a vector file whose fonts are referenced rather than embedded will print with substituted type, and nothing here warns you about it.
Who runs it
Vecpath is built and maintained in the Netherlands by one person working in commercial print, who got tired of having the same conversation. It is free, carries no advertising, is funded by nothing, and collects nothing. If it is useful, the most helpful thing you can do is tell someone else it exists.
Corrections and bug reports are welcome, and a file that it gets wrong is the single most valuable thing anyone can send. Write to contact@vecpath.com.