Brand new and need some help

[jerrica]

Hi everyone, I am a new comer to black cat and die cutting machine and software in general.
I've had my machine for about a month and it has been pretty slow going and I really need some
help if you don't mind. My three biggest hangups are these-

1. I have a mac and use sign cut and inkscape. If i make a design in inskape, using only inkscape
to design it, it transfers to sign cut and cuts no problem. But if I pull an image from the internet or
something I designed in illustrator, and change it to an .svg in inkscape and then try to open it in
signcut it just becomes a blank image. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

2. All of my inkscape designs have a rectangle around them that I can not get rid of. I am expecting
this answer to be embarrassingly simple but would be very helpful.

3. Can I start cutting in the middle of my black cat cutter or anywhere other then just the far right
corner? Do I align where I want to start cutting in sign cut or with the black cat cutter itself?

Any help you can offer would be lovely. These have probably all been answered already but I couldn't
find the appropriate key words to search so even if you can post a link to those would be great. I'm really
happy to join this artistic community and can't wait to create gorgeous designs that seen posted here!
thanks -Jerrica

[Thyme]

Hi Jerrica,
First of all, welcome!

1. It sounds as though you are not tracing (vectorising) the image before you send it to signcut. Simply saving a file as svg does not vectorise it, and vectors are whar signcut sees. Try selecting the image and use Path/Trace Bitmap on it. Then delete the original image and send to signcut.
Any time you are not sure if you have a vector, go to View/Display Mode/Outline. If the image disappears and a rectangle with a cross through it appears in its place then your image is not a vector and must be traced.

2. Do you mean when looking at the design in Inkscape? If so go to document properties and untick Show Border. If you mean when you cut the file there is a rectangle around it then open the cutting window in signcut and untick Use Weeding Frame

3. You can either put the cutter of line and then use the arrow buttons to place the carriage over the point you would like to start cutting, and then press the origin button before you go on line. Or you can draw a rectangle the same size as you media. make it a different colour to the rest of the template, [position the parts you want to cut relevant to that rectangle and send to Signcut. Once open in signcut position the origin over the front right corner of the media, select just the colour of the part you want to cut and not the rectangle and make sure trhat you have whole area selected - the top icon on the right hand tool bar

[jerrica]

Thank you so much thyme!

[Thyme]

You're welcome