Welcome back! I am here to give you an overview on the many buttons of the silhouette studio. I have learned TONS over the last 2 years and I will be sharing all my knowledge, but first let’s start with the basics.
There are a lot of buttons, so let me cover what they are and give you some quick tips on different items!
Once you have your studio open there are a few buttons you will need to familiarize yourself with – let’s start at the top of the screen:
From left to right you will see:
- New Document
- Open file
- Save (important SAVE OFTEN!)
- Print (you can print documents to .pdfs in which you then can send your designs to card stock and make beautiful invitations or cards)
- the next few are unhighlighted but cut, copy, paste (these operate exactly as you would think)
- undo, re-do, multiple undo (this is the 3 arrows in a circle) – this function will allow you to undo multiple steps that you have done
- select all (selects everything in the document) , deselect all (just the opposite), select by color (this is handy for bigger jobs in which everything has a color)
- Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom to a specific section (click this button and click the area you want to make bigger and it will position your zoom right on the item you click),
- Zoom in an out using mouse (this function you click the screen and move your mouse forward to the screen to zoom in and back towards you to zoom out)
- The hand is a pan using mouse – clicking on this will allow you to click and move your screen left, right, up or down without using the scroll bars on the right or bottom of the screen
- Fit to Window – this last item will fit your design in the window by zooming in or out
The left hand side looks similar to the below:
These can make or break you sometimes – this button will indicate to the studio what it is you are wanting to do. For the cursor it just says you want to be able to Click on items, if you are on any of the other items it can cause you to start drawing where you don’t want to and such. So from the top down:
- Select tool
- Edit Points (this will be a life saver for designs, which I will cover extensively in another blog)
- The line is a draw tool – you can draw straight lines, a polygon, curves shape, an arc
- The rectangle- this tool you can select to draw a rectangle (which can also be a square – if you hold the shift key when drawing your square or circle it will make sure that your sides are uniform and give you a perfect square or circle, a rounded rectangle, an ellipse (or circle) or a polygon
- The pencil is a free draw tool – this will allow you to draw like paint (free-hand) an item – it will make you complete your design (close the item to make it a whole).
- A – this item goes along with the A below as well this will give you the cursor to start typing
- Draw a Note – this is good for making notes in the Drawing/Design (ex: sizing on different shirt sizes, what font name you used, etc)
- Eraser – this can help you adjust parts of a design and erase sections you do not want
- Knife – similar to the above this tool will allow you to cut through a design and separate it into 2 parts (or more)
The right hand side menu might look different than the below – as I am on the designer/business edition, all the options are open to me. These have additional functions, so I will go through some of them below. I don’t want to overwhelm you so here are some important ones:
Page Setup – this allows you to setup your studio to the sizing you have in a mat or material. If you notice my settings are 12 wide by 14.5 height – this is a standard height for HTV that I buy, I then have my orientation portrait (but you can switch to landscape). You can change your cutting mat – standard is 12 x 12, I have a bigger 12×24 (quick tip – you can tape your 12×12 mats together – I know you have 2- to make your mat bigger). My only suggestion is ALWAYS have the “Show Cut Border” selected – as this will put a red line around your mat showing where you need to keep your design in side the line so the blade can actually cut it.
PixScan function – if you purchased a bundle, you more than likely got a mat called the “pix scan” mat – this is amazing for projects that you need to have a specific size. For example I used this to take a hand print of my 4 year old and 6 month old to cut out in vinyl and put on a shirt for my husband – and I wanted the hand prints to be the exact size.
The top paint pallet is the fill function and the one right below it is the line fill function – these allow you to select portions of your design and color them so that you can see what they will look like. You can color anything you have created in the studio to see what your final design will look like.
The Trace function – this has to be THE MOST IMPORTANT function in your silhouette. This function allows you to take a picture or shape, select it, and “trace” or recreate the picture in your design studio to be a usable/cutable item.
This is the Text Function – Clicking the “A” will bring up a box with all your fonts available to you (I have a short on how to use this at the bottom of this blog). You can adjust your font with the line spacing or the character spacing (each letter) making them closer or further apart.
The Transform function will help you line up your designs – if you have 3 lines of fonts, you can line up horizontally or vertically, or space to make sure everything has even spacing so you can make a close to perfect design.
The modify function helps adjust design flaws, for example any font you use that is cursive – you will need to “weld” to get rid of the lines in between letters so you don’t have cut lines in between letters. The subtract function helps you create a space in the design you have so if you have to layer something in, you can have a missing piece. These items you will have to play with to know exactly which one you are needing in which situation.
Offset – this function is GREAT! If you happen to pick a font that is tooo skinny, you can create an offset of that font so that you can thicken the lines to work with (also can be used to work the other way and skinny up items).
Replicate (this can also be found in the drop down under Object – replicate) this can be helpful if you are attempting to fill your mat with the same design over and over. You can duplicate left or right and then down, click fill page (be careful as this is NOT a material saver, so you can adjust items closer to each other to use less materials – I save EVERYTHING).
Now that you know which buttons are which – lets use a few in our next blog!!
Go here to “Create your First Design” https://stephmwright.com/2019/01/03/create-your-first-design/
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