Changing mats

[pigtailpat]

I designed a stencil for my veterans' quilt while on vacation and test cut with my gaz, as that was the thing to do for easy transport. The original design had the gazzy mat in the software, the set up was the original design was on one page, and on page two was multiple copies of the design to fill the gazzy mat (I love the ability to save multiple pages of one design in SCAL and in MTC, I'm cutting though much less with MTC these days however). I wanted to test whether making multiple cuts of the design was smooth (it worked).

In a couple of weeks (I'm pretty sure I am out of vinyl blades - which I think I need for freezer paper), I'd like to transfer that design to the big cougar mat (I have the really big one cut down to fit the 18' cougar - as that was available at the time I got the mat).

If I made a third page of that design and used a custom mat for the cougar, will the design transfer over to that intact? I'd like page one and two to remain in the original gazzy mat. I guess what I am asking, is can I create a mat for a file that already had other mats on different pages? Or, would I need to create a whole new file and import the original design? If I import the original design to a new file - will it import at exactly the same size? (It took me quite some time to figure out the size I needed - I don't want to begin anew).

Thanks.

Pat

[Gigi]

Ok - I just read that three times and I still am not sure I get it!! I think I need caffeine! So if what I say doesn't make sense, just chalk it up to my inability to grasp the question!

I just tried to make different sized mats between page 1 and 2 and I coudln't do that When I changed the size of page 2 it changed the size of page 2, but it NEVER changed the size or placement of the design.

So I don't see why you cant add page three however you need, and assuming it is larger than the other two pages, those designs will then appear on different sized mats. But remember, the machine doesn't know what size mat you have in your machine and it only matters if you are cutting WYSIWYG. Your design size is not going to change.

Assuming you have the designs saved as svg, they size is not going to change if you import them. So I would play around a little, but if your third page has more "design" on it than the other two, I don't see why you cant change your mat size to the largest needed in your software and then just move the other designs on the two pages to the proper location on the larger mat. Does that make sense? Am I coming close to understanding?? Honest I am sipping coffee as I type this, but not sure I am getting it still!

I guess I should ask, where are you designing your file when you talk about "transferring it over"?

I have lots of designs that open in different sized mats because that is how they were designed by others and I just switch the mat size to what is comfortable for me - for whatever reason and the design itself never change unless I intentionally resize it.

Have I confused it even more??

[MeFlick]

Just a quick thought - if you can't make a 3rd page with a different size mat (which is really only for "visual" for the user to "see" how it would fit on the mat) why not do a "save as" to save the existing file under a new file name and then simply adjust the new file page to have the number of designs on it that you want. Very easy peasy. I didn't go into either program (SCAL or MTC) to see about the 3rd page different size mat ?.

[pigtailpat]

Gigi - you were reading right. I know sometimes I get so wordy, I confuse myself )))::

Mel - you were right the procedure is to do a save as when creating a third page with different mat size. The software cannot have different mats on different pages within the same file. I was hoping that we could have different mats within the same file (on different pages) as it would keep file clutter to a minimum. I'll make that suggestion to brandon, he might eventually consider it if it is doable. He changed the handles in the program for me (sweetie) (I only noticed recently he made advanced handles - love that!!), so maybe we can see different mat sizes within the same file. The significance is that for those of us with different cutters, we can use the same design for different cutters and not have multiple versions of the same file. Even with one cutter, adjusting the mat to match your media (for WYSIWYG cutting) within the same file (without changing the original design) is a nice thing. There may be limitations in code that I cannot begin to know for doing this. But I will make the suggestion and see what happens.