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- #Use adobe illustrator with roland printer/cutter driver#
- #Use adobe illustrator with roland printer/cutter software#
For example, in drawing programs which provide for different-size pages (FreeHand, Corel Draw, always late-to-the game Illustrator, and others) you can do your original design on one page, then move its various pieces to vinyl-specific pages set to the width of your vinyl. Once you get accustomed to your particular machine and the general process, you'll find that you can do much of the file optimization in your drawing software.
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Then you can save the file with all of its setups in the middleware program's format and keep it handy for later repeats. You do a few cutting-specific manipulations you need to make the process less tedious and wasteful, make the appropriate job-specific settings and click a Cut button. svg, etc.) which the middleware program can import. You do the design in your preferred drawing program and export it to one of several common vector exchange formats (.ai. I avoid mission-critical dependency upon third-party plug-ins like the plague. Plug-in updates also often lag behind changes to the host drawing program which can break compatibility. Some are in the form of program-specific plug-ins (which I do not).Ī plug in will usually have less functionality and moreover increases your dependency upon one particular drawing program. Most are in the form of a standalone application (which I recommend).
#Use adobe illustrator with roland printer/cutter software#
This is the kind of middleware software I usually recommend.
#Use adobe illustrator with roland printer/cutter driver#
Just as with any other output device, a vinyl cutter requires an OS-level software driver to interpret between the computer and the cutter across whatever data bus the cutter connects to. For your stated intention, you'll probably want a combination printer-cutter, not just a cutter.Ī system-level driver. Paths in general purpose drawing software like Illustrator are Bezier curves, not the HPGL-friendly "polylines" typically exported from CAD systems. That means they want to work with plotter-language files (HPGL). That's changed slowly but significantly in recent decades, but there's still way too much confusion.Ĭutters are basically just glorified pen plotters that push a knife instead of a pen. Documentation has historically been overly technical and sparse not really targeted toward hobbyists. There's just always been a disproportionate level of confusion because vinyl cutting started as a vertical market solution for the sign trade, sold and supported through resellers.