Script for Plotter Cutting Vehicle Letters

[Rob Eidemiller]

We are a printing company that does a lot of plotter cutting for vehicle ID numbers and it can become a tedious process on larger orders.

My process is this: create new artboard, type out ID number, convert fonts to outlines, make artboard the size of outlined fonts, add .5" to artboard height and width, apply Cut spot color to ID numbers.

Is there an easy way (a script?) to import a CSV file with each ID number and it do this process?

[CarlosCanto]

yes it's possible, what font are you using? what size? what do you after, save each file? what's the file name? where to save it?

can you provide csv and sample ai file?

[Rob Eidemiller]

Using Helvetica Neue Condensed Black at 301pt. It is saved as a multi-page PDF each time which is saved to my desktop.

There is both a horizontal and vertical version of each number.

[Disposition_Dev]

definitely possible. and dare i say.. pretty easy and straightforward. ive done stuff like this many times before. 

looks like carlos might be helping out, so i wont double up the work unless he doesnt have time to help out.

But as someone who's done a fair bit of plotting on vinyl, i would encourage you to also consider the order of the letters that will be cut so you can optimize the cutting path and avoid time consuming (and sometimes material consuming) travel time for the cutting tool. im sure youve seen it before where the plotter will cut one letter at the top left of the page, then cut another letter/shape at the bottom right, then move back to the top left to cut the next thing. This wastes time, puts extra wear and tear on the machine, and can sometimes skew the media (assuming youre cutting from a roll and the machine is trying to quickly feed the media back and forth) which can ruin the job and force you to start over.

[CarlosCanto]

be my guest william, I was just getting the party started 🙂

[Disposition_Dev]

can you share how the ai file is laid out? do you have artboards for each set, or one artboard and layers for each set? are you open to getting a folder of individual PDFs that can be merged with acrobat?