Need Help Newbie to print and Cut - Cant get a cutline from illustrator into versaworks

[massivewire]

Hi All,

I am hoping one or two of you have some time to help me out.

I have got my hands on a Roland SP300v that had stood still with ink in for 5 years, over a couple of months I have replaced all serviceable parts, ink lines, soaked heads, replaced a blown fuse on the mainboard and beleive it or not I got the thing working, it prints and it cuts, that in itself is a miracle.

I have printed some stickers and cut them out using the cutline function in versaworks and all works well.

Anyway I have been reading and researching and found that I should be able to contour cut and also perferate the backing media.

I have plenty of experience with PCs and have a reasonable knowledge of Photoshop but Illustrator is something I have never needed to use. I have watched tutorial after tutorial to try to add the cutline in illustrator without succes. I have added the versaworks pallette in with the cut contour line but can not get it to work, when I open the PDF in versaworks it does not recognise a cut line.

I am wondering if anyone can explain it in a different way that may help me, once I get my head around the programme and how to create the lines hopefully I will be fine.

 

[shoresigns]

We use PDFs for contour cutting on VersaWorks all the time.

1. Is your cutline set to a spot colour named "CutContour"?
2. Do you have any transparency effects or images with transparency in your design? If so, you may need to flatten them before VersaWorks will recognise the CutContour spot colour. Transparencies and spot colours can cause all kinds of problems in printing.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

You said it cuts, how are you cutting vinyl? The only way to cut vinyl in Versaworks is using the cutcontour line out of illustrator or Corel...

 

[massivewire]

I did have, I initially started with a JPG of the google logo pinched off google images, opened it in photoshop and put it on a transparent background, saved it as a tiff file maintaining transparenty and then opened it in Illustrator, tried to put a cut line around it and no matter what I did could not get a cut line.

I then found a site that had downloadable logos in vector format and to be honest I was all over the place with this, I used the versaworks swatch pallette that has the ContourCut swatch already setup, put it around the border and set it to 0.25 pixels. Saved as PDF (Attached) when I open it in versaworks the cut line is not recognised.

I am sure it is a lack of understanding, i have searched the internet for a print and cut ready file to test the software but have not been able to find one.

 

[massivewire]

You said it cuts, how are you cutting vinyl? The only way to cut vinyl in Versaworks is using the cutcontour line out of illustrator or Corel...

In versaworks you can choose to cut the boundary around the image

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

It rarely works with transparency. Works best on an all vector design.
A few things you can do if you have to have transparency in your design. Make sure the CutContour line is on its own layer, and on top.
Then when you export or save as, if you do PDF, use PDFx. If you're doing EPS, then try the Opaque radio button at the top of the export menu instead of the default transparency setting, and you can also try the Type 3 PostScript language type instead of the default type2.

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

use your google image without clipping the white out. it wont print anyway. just add your cut llines on top of the image in illustrator

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

Also, your stroke for the cut contour HAS to be on the center of the vector. It cannot be offset to the inside or outside.

 

[Red Ball]

Also, cut contour must be 1 point when it hits VersaWorks. Helps to turn off the "scale strokes" in preferences

 

[JaySea20]

When I downloaded your file, It showed Contour cut just fine in VersaWorks... Not sure. You are changing it from "Print Only" right?

I have attached a screenshot of versaworks with your file.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I am willing to bet that your default color profile is for a paper material and not a vinyl material. This would cause Versaworks to not see the cu line because it doesn't want you to try to cut paper because the machine is not meant to. So if you are not on a vinyl profile, the lines won't show up no matter what.

 

[TimToad]

A couple of things in addition to all the other good advice.

If working in Illustrator, make sure your stroke is set to .25 point thickness and the limit is set at 1.

Another good tip is to always have your cutline be the highest layer or on top of everything else if keeping it the most forward thing in a layer other elements are in.

The PerfContourCut line needs to be a separate color than your ContourCut line but the same parameters. You create that swatch just like the other.

I have the best luck using .pdfs set to "high quality print" if using an .eps file, I've found that if when saving the final file that not selecting "high resolution" in the saving prompt can sometimes cause a failure in Versaworks to recognize the cutline.

 

[jimbug72]

Also make sure your stroke is aligned to center. I pulled my hair out for a half hour once trying to figure out why the heck Versaworks wouldn't recognize my cut line. Then noticed I had accidentally aligned it to the outside. Changed it back to center and then it worked.

 

[massivewire]

Thank you all for your help, I have had some success and believe it or not it was a setting in versaworks on the file format of the queue settings panel there is an eps margin setting, set that to 0.05 and the cut line appeared instantly.

So much to learn, i have learnt how to put a cut line around the outside of letters, now need to learn how to cut the interior white space out as well.

Now I have the cutlines working, hopefully i can get my head around it all now.

Also make sure your stroke is aligned to center. I pulled my hair out for a half hour once trying to figure out why the heck Versaworks wouldn't recognize my cut line. Then noticed I had accidentally aligned it to the outside. Changed it back to center and then it worked.

Where do you adjust it left, right, centre?

 

[jimbug72]

Where do you adjust it left, right, centre?

Stroke Palette