CUT LINE

[defaultyzwsyia80ymr]

I am looking to add a cutline around a letter with a stroke.  It seems when I add the cutline around the stroke  it finds the letter itself and wants to cut out the letter and the stroke.  How do I have it just see to cut out stroke

[Monika Gause]

You have to look in your cutter's manual how to format the cutline so it gets correctly interpreted.

[defaultyzwsyia80ymr]

This is what shows on my illustrator program.  the stroke is set as a Versaworks cutline.  But when I go to Versaworks

I have "dancing ants" (cutline) around the black letter and stroke. So it wants to cut both

[Monika Gause]

So the red one should be the cutline?

It's grouped with all the rest. Is that correct? Or does it also need to be on its own layer? Is the correct color applied?

[Bobby Henderson]

If the cutting operation is only supposed to cut around the outside edge of the green fills you need to make sure the black filled letters don't have a cut path stroke applied to them. The marching ants in the preview are supposed to appear only on paths where a CutContour-named stroke has been applied. Usually when I prepare artwork to be both print and cut I will isolate my cut paths on a different layer. I do not apply cut paths directly to objects that are also printed. I do that for organization purposes and also because I'll incorporate a certain amount of bleed into the printed artwork to prevent any white creeping into the cut artwork edges.

[Jacob Bugge]

defaulty,

You may have a look at this answer by Bobby in a somewhat similar thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/fill-and-stroke-lines-trying-to-cut-when-expo...

[Zelish24694771ki9h]

Hey, this link is not working on my side 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/fill-and-stroke-lines-trying-to-cut-when-expo...

[Bobby Henderson]

It's a long link. After the "illustrator-discussions/" portion of the link make sure none of this is getting clipped in your browser's address bar:
fill-and-stroke-lines-trying-to-cut-when-exported-to-cutter-making-my-design-cut-twice/m-p/13781106#M366506

[Bobby Henderson]

What kind of vinyl cutting software are you using? Is it an Illustrator plugin? Are you doing printing and cutting?

Usually the more common issue I see is the software not wanting to recognize a cut line. But this is usually within print/cut operations in large format printing RIP software. The applications require the user to create a custom-named spot color (typically called "CutContour") and apply that spot color to a stroke on the intended cut paths. The cut paths would have no fill. If the cut paths are properly named they'll be "seen" in the cutting operations.

[defaultyzwsyia80ymr]

Versaworks

[defaultyzwsyia80ymr]

Illustrator sees gives me a pink contour cutline and on screen it only shows around the stroker but when I  move it to Versaworks it wants to cut both inside stroke and outside stroke. 

[Bobby Henderson]

It has been several years since I've used Roland VersaWorks. I'm pretty sure the setup procedure for creating cut paths hasn't changed. The software should only recognize cut paths that have been properly set up. The cut paths are supposed to have no fill and only a stroke. I'll usually isolate such paths on their own layer above layers containing other artwork. The cut path stroke has to be colored using a custom spot color swatch, with the color named "CutContour." The old VersaWorks install disc had a "Roland VersaWorks.ai" file that could be copied into the "Swatches" folder where Illustrator is installed. But it takes less time just creating a new swatch rather than hunting through a bunch of program folders. Open the Color palette, click the fly-out menu and select "Create New Swatch." The dialog box that opens has a few entries. For Swatch Name type: CutContour. Under Color Type choose Spot Color. Color Mode should be CMYK. Then give the new swatch a loud color. 100% Magenta is the most common choice.

If the cut paths have been properly colored VersaWorks should only cut the path once. If it is wanting to cut inside and outside the center line of the path then the stroke must have been expanded or something.