Ai Plugin for vinyl cutting

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
February 15, 2011
7 replies
49115 views

Hi,

Does anyone know of a cheap plugin for cutting vinyl directly within illustrator CS3 for MAC OS 10 snow leopard? ... or a utility that will do the same thing on a Mac?

I dont want an all singing all dancing program that will cost hundreds of pounds and allow me to design the artwork etc, i just need to cut the vectors that i will create in Illustrator, so a plugin would be ideal but despite searching I cant find anything for a Mac.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Kevin

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Allen5E66

Participant

Older legacy versions of Ai pre CS, had a function in its toolbox that was a direct built in driver for plotters.

I run Flexi on my design computer along with Adobe suite, even if I am designing In Ai or PS, I can open it directly in Flexi and send it to my plotter if it's in vector format, or create a cut line layer of an image created in PS. Jpegs, pdfa, png files all easily converted and plotted.

Ut back to legacy versions of Ai. The ones that came on CD's.

I do have an old windows desktop, that I've had to use in a pinch that still has an older (unsupported by adobe) Ai program running on it. It's on my server network, so I just open the file there, if my laptop is tied up designing or rendering large files.

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david30497876o24g

Participant

I have been using XFCut cuting plug in for 5 years on my macOS. It works great. easy to create designs from Adobe Illustrator to your vinyl cutter plotter with only a click. the trial version may be downloaded from https://xfcut.com/ .

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roger27894540q0nk

Participant

Hi there I have been tryimg to use it but keep getting error "Document Size is not valid" any ideas ??

thanks

roger

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glenn27299608djhz

Participant

I understand the frustration. Being I'm in the signmaking business I do all of my graphics inside Adobe Illustrator saved in a CD (CorelDraw format) which has a plug installed called SignWorks (Windows OS). Unfortunatly all signmaking software is Windows OS. Reason for that is when signs were first done by handpainting it later transitioned into the digital world (1990) by a proprietary company known as Gerber Scientific. Gerber is neither windows or mac but manufactured a letter cutting machine. Gerber was also the first signmaking machine manufacturer. Their first product meeting this digital signmaking era was the Signmaker 4B. It had a built in motherboard along with fonts and its cutting plotter sitting ontop of it. This was a complete signmaking machine which became known as the workhorse of digital signmaking. As the sign industry grew in particualarly the buildboard business large format printers got in the action and started developing software to work with their huge (25'-35') printers. At this point all of the software were Windows OS not Macs. In other words, Windows jumped in the action while Apple didnt have the confidence that it would be a profitable business investment. Unfortanantly they were millions upon millions of dollars wrong. I believe there was some kind of deal with Windows and the signmaking industries that may have locked the door legally keeping Apple outside the game. Why they didnt pursue getting in the profitable signmaking industry developing Mac OS softaware remains a mystery till this day. That is why there is no cutting software (plug ins) to produce signs or graphics in a Mac OS platform that could've been used inside a vector program like Adobe Illustrator - it would have to done the way I do it but again it remains inside Windows when it has to go to a cutting plotter for production. So you may have to make that switch from Mac to Windows. Sorry for the lengthy history but that is basically was happen historically.

Wopsgao

Participant

I've been using on the easy cut studio software, it does not need to spend too much time, my software is running on the MAC.You can try it.

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Belletterie

Participant

I have been using NCS MagiSign for 5 years on my mac. Works great. Not expensive. This is a plugin for illustrator. Succes.

NCS MagiSign for Adobe Illustrator plug-in

k. jónsson

MastaMind82

Participant

You can try the Roland CutStudio Plugin for Illustrator. What kind of vinyl cutter are you currently using?

http://www.specialty-graphics.com/Roland_Cutstudio_Software.html

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bubbafunk1Author

Participant

Hi and thanks for your post, i contacted Roland but unfortunately the plugin does not support my old Roland Camm 1.

Thanks also to Scott Falkner, i followed your link and contacted www.graphtecamerica.com who make the plugin Cutting Master 2 for a link to download the free plugin. I am not sure yet if it even supports my plotter but i will give it a go.

It would be nice if Adobe could make a plugin that does the job, just a plotting driver that will allow you to cut from Illustrator on a mac. I have searched high and low for a mac plugin and can seem to find any...... I AM AMAZED! and dissapointed at the same time.

I will keep looking.

Thanks

kevin