Shape a cut line by hand
Move, add and remove points on a cut line, fit it to a stock shape, save a shape for the shop, and what Trace again does.
A traced line is often nearly right. What stands between nearly right and perfect is usually four points in the wrong place.
Open the editor
Select a piece, open the Design tab and press Shape the cut line, or open the Cut tab and press Shape the cut line…. It is the same editor, titled Shaping the cut line. Crop the picture is next to it. Cropping changes what prints, and shaping changes where the blade goes. They are never mixed.
The tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Move | Drag a point. Hold Alt to ignore snapping. |
| Add | Click the line to put a point on it, exactly where you clicked. |
| Remove | Click a point to take it away. |
| Fill | Click inside a hole to stop cutting it. |
| Draw | Click points, or hold and drag to draw by hand, and close on the first point. The line you draw replaces the one there. |
Snapping is what makes it precise. A pointer lands within a pixel or two of where you meant, and on a 3″ sticker a pixel is about seven thousandths of an inch. Three kinds of snap, each switchable: to the edge of the design, to other points, and to square and 45°. Alt is the way out, for the one time you want a point three thousandths off the edge.
Also in the editor:
- How closely it follows traces again from the design at three levels of detail. It starts over, so anything moved by hand is lost. It is the one thing in the editor that throws work away.
- More material and Less move the whole line out or in by a small step. A shrink the shape cannot take is refused.
- Fit it to a… is offered when the traced line is nearly a stock shape. Take out points removes points the blade does not need.
- Under the tools are the shapes: Around the design, a circle, a rounded rectangle, a square, a rectangle, and the shop's saved shapes by name.
Ctrl+Z undoes, Delete removes the chosen point and Escape closes without saving. Use this line keeps your line, and Start again puts a fresh traced line back to edit from.
Save a shape for the whole shop
Save this shape…, under the shapes, asks for a name and saves the line as it is for your whole shop. It is kept in the shop's account and is on every computer, and it is listed in Templates under Saved shapes, where Put away takes it out of every list. A saved shape lands at its largest, in its own proportions, centred.
Nothing moves after you let go
An edited line reopens point for point as you left it. It is not simplified again, because simplifying drops the points that are nearly in a straight line, which is exactly where you put one to hold a straight edge straight.
When the artwork changes under a line you kept
If you crop, turn or replace the picture after shaping the line by hand, the Cut tab says The art changed under this line. Trace again loses your edits. It gets a mark on its tab, and the preflight shows a look. Nothing changes the line for you.
Trace again lets go of your line and cuts to whatever a fresh trace gives. On a PDF or a JPEG, which have no shape to find, that goes back to the picture's rectangle, or to a shape you pick, and the panel says which before you press it. Ctrl+Z after it brings your edits back.
Resizing a piece without changing its shape is not a change of picture: the line is drawn bigger with the piece.