Vinyl Cutting
Lettering, decals and graphics cut from sign vinyl and heat-transfer vinyl on a drag-knife cutter, with weed boxes and weed lines to strip the waste, and contour cuts round printed designs. A drawing whose industry is Vinyl cutting offers these tools in the toolbar and in Edit › Tool.
Tools
| Tool | Does | |
|---|---|---|
| Weed Border | A weed box round the design, a margin out | |
| Weed Lines | Cuts across the waste between the letters | |
| HTV Mirror | A mirrored copy for heat-transfer vinyl | |
| Contour Cut | A cut round a printed design, a distance out | |
| Tiling | A design larger than the roll split into overlapping panels | |
| Colour Separation | Registration marks on every colour's layer |
The production tools for every industry, Registration Mark and Drill Hole, are offered too.
To cut a logo or graphic you have only as a picture, trace it into closed curves with the Trace Tool, beside the Raster Image Tool in the general tools.
Cuts go on layer 0 and guides on layer 8 (Dimension, never printed or cut); print areas go on the standard Print layer and registration marks on the Registration layer (see Layers). A drag knife's overcut and blade offset are set in the layers' tool options.
Exports for vinyl cutting
File › Export › Export… writes the formats vinyl cutters send to their machines:
- Print-and-cut PDF and EPS: artwork printed and the contour cut as a CutContour spot colour, with registration marks, for a print-and-cut RIP (VersaWorks, Onyx, Caldera, Flexi …).
- GP-GL for Graphtec cutting plotters, a file per layer, and HP-GL for other vinyl cutters.
- SVG for Cricut and Silhouette, at its true size, a colour for each layer.
- DXF for other cutting programs.
Designs in the library
File › Run Parametric… has a Vinyl cutting folder (see Run Parametric); a drawing made from one of its designs is for this industry:
| Design | What it is |
|---|---|
| Circle and rectangle decals | A sheet of printed decals with their contour cuts, for print-and-cut |
| Lettering plate | The panel a line of lettering goes on, sized from the letters |
| Numbering plates | A run of numbered plates in rows |
| Stripes and pinstripes | A wide stripe with pinstripes, or racing stripes |
| Vehicle door panel | A vehicle door's panel with its safe area for lettering |
| Weeding box template | A weed border round a design's area |
Machine profiles
Make It (File › Export › Make It, Ctrl+Shift+M, or the Make It button at the top of the window) writes the cutter's file (Vinyl cutter (HP-GL)) in one click, beside the drawing, after checking the design: see Make It.
File › Export › Export… lists this trade's formats first. File › Send Using Machine Profile sends the drawing to a machine in one click, with the format, options, layer names and pens it needs; those that come with the app for this trade: Vinyl cutter (HP-GL), Graphtec cutter (GP-GL). See Export by Industry and Machine Profiles.
See also: Industries and Tool Sets, Tools.