Lisa Lander wrote:
so, while im here, is there anyway of knowing before buying a file that is it overloaded with nodes ? and also, why are they overloaded with nodes ? i guess they are used for things other than cutting, so ......?
I don't know that there is any way to no in advance what a file looks like, but if you are buying from a "new" site, as in new to you, I would just get one file at a time to be sure the files are good. Chances are this person just did a manual trace of clip art and didn't clean it up. You could have done that on your own with better results!
There is a lot of clip art and line art (black and white images) out there that are free and you can practice tracing on them and not pay someone to do it.
There are good sites that make quality svg files. Miss Kates Cuttables has daily freebies (M-F) that cut beautifully plus a wide variety that you can purchase inexpensively. That's just one example. If you want to buy files. Crafty Vectors (Dominic Parker) makes beautiful files and he hand cuts his own files - I know. He has more patience than I do!! I have all of his floral frame cards and have made tons of them - they are detailed and beautiful. And there are other good sites out there - I would just start with free files and try out different sites to see who makes files that cut well. They all don't put time and care into their files as you have found out.
I think you need to take a deep breath and get through the classes first before you tackle difficult files. You are still learning which is great. But I don't want to see you become overly frustrated because you are trying to tackle too much too fast. Take baby steps. I know you want to jump in and cut everything, but if you take the time now to learn the basics and take it a step at a time, it will save a lot of frustration and ruined card stock and will ensure that you will have more success later on.
Re: your question about how to zoom in - click on the magnifying glass with the "+" in it in the tool icons - it's the third from the bottom. And when you click on that, there are other options in the upper left above the mat so you can zoom back in, make it the size of your window, etc.
Hope that helps.