Importing artwork

You can start from artwork made elsewhere: an SVG from a design tool, or a picture that the editor converts to vector shapes.

What can be brought in

File	How it arrives
SVG	Each shape becomes a path layer you can edit and animate
PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF	Traced into flat-colour vector shapes
Project file (`.json`)	Opens as a document
svgmo file (`.json`, older `.svgmo` and `.vmotion`)	Opens as a document

Lottie files cannot be opened.

The Import / Export panel

Drop the file on the editor window.
File > Open… (Ctrl/⌘ + O) for any supported file.
File > Place… (Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + P) for a picture or SVG, added to the open document.
File > Import SVG… for an SVG.
The Import / Export panel: Import SVG, Import image, Import project JSON, or paste SVG markup into the box.
The start screen: Trace an image….

Shapes become path layers with their fills and strokes. Text that was converted to outlines in the design tool arrives as shapes.

Tips:

Convert text to outlines before exporting the SVG from your design tool. Live text is not imported as letters.
If nothing seems to arrive, the artwork may be outside the artboard. Use View > Fit All in Window (Ctrl/⌘ + Alt + 0), then Object > Artboard > Fit to Artwork or Center Artwork.
A whole word often arrives as one layer. See the next section.

A word, or an icon made of several pieces, is often a single path with many outlines. To animate each piece on its own:

Select the layer.
Object > Split into Separate Shapes. The same command is Object > Path > Release Compound Path and a button under Quick actions in Properties.

You get one layer per outline. Holes stay with their letter: the inside of an "o" does not become a separate layer.

The command is greyed out when the layer has only one outline.

The Import image dialog: preview on the left, mode and settings on the right

Pictures are made of pixels. Tracing turns them into shapes with clean edges that stay sharp at any size.

Mode	Result	Good for
Color	A set number of flat colours	Logos, illustrations, flat artwork
Grayscale	Shades of grey	Pencil drawings, shaded artwork
Black & white	One shape	Signatures, ink, silhouettes

Setting	Meaning
Fidelity	A preset for the settings below, from simple to detailed
Colors	How many flat colours the picture is reduced to
Threshold	Black & white only: pixels darker than this become the shape
Detail	The picture is scaled to this size before tracing. Larger keeps finer detail and makes more points
Fit	How closely the curves follow the outline. Lower is more exact with more points. 0 keeps the exact pixel outline, for pixel art
Corners	Turns sharper than this stay sharp corners; gentler turns become curves. 180 means no corners at all
Specks	Regions smaller than this are removed

Tick Drop background. It leaves out the colour found at the corners of the picture, which removes a plain background in one step.
Or press Pick color to remove and click a colour in the preview. It is taken out of the result. Repeat for more colours.
Tolerance sets how far a shade may be from a removed colour and still go with it. Raise it if a fringe of the background is left.
Removed colours are listed as chips. Click a chip to keep that colour again.

Scroll over the preview to zoom, drag to move, double-click to reset. The +, − and Fit buttons do the same.

Start from the largest, cleanest picture you have. A small or blurry picture gives lumpy edges.
Use as few colours as the artwork has. A two-colour logo traced with 16 colours gains stray fringe shapes.
Photos do not trace well. The result is thousands of points and plays slowly. Tracing suits flat artwork.
If the result is heavy, lower Detail or raise Fit.

Imported layers are ordinary layers. Rename them in the Layers panel, recolour them, and animate them as in Animating.