Hi folks, new to the forum & hope you can help. Just a little background about me, I'm a high school teacher and my classes use an Epilog Laser Engraver, Roland GX-24 vinyl cutter, and a Roland VersaCAMM VP-300 printer/cutter. My question revolves around preparing a graphic to cut using the VP-300 printer/cutter. I'm sure there's a simple solution for this, but it's been stumping me for a while now to the point where I wanted to see if I could just ask someone that has a greater skill than I do. We use CorelDraw X3 as our design software.
Let's say that we are creating a vinyl sticker as a class project. For simplicity, let's just say the project is for the student to create a sticker that is their first name. So we use the text tool and create the text and give it a fill color - let's say red in this case. We also use the outline tool to give the text an outline - let's say the color is black. The problem I'm having is getting an outline color around the black outline that is the CutContour color needed so the VersaCAMM can identify the cut line. Everything I have tried produces the cutline on BOTH sides of my black outline color. I want my cut line to be around the outside of the black outline of the text, so the end result is just red letters with a black background. Most everything I try involves converting the outline to an object, but like I mentioned, it gives me an outline on both sides of my existing black outline, which is no good.
I realize this may be hard to visualize. I'm not sure if the attachment will come through or not. If it shows, you can see how the cut line (blue) surrounds my original outline and that's not what I need.
What am I missing? Thank you in advance!
Marquis Songer
Hello Marquis,
One way (there are probably a dozen ways to do ti) is to:
1. Convert the outline to an object. Duplicate the text. Weld the duplicate text to the outline object. Color it black and place it behine the original red text.
Good Luck - Scotty
scottyjr said:1. Convert the outline to an object. Duplicate the text. Weld the duplicate text to the outline object. Color it black and place it behine the original red text.
Additional tip: The Smart Fill tool can sometimes be used the create also the outer boundary, just click outside the object. Note though that doing this will create smart fill objects around the outer edge of any object or group in your drawing, so if there are many it may take some time to calculate.
Here's another tip from a long-time Roland PC60 operator which might be useful if the Versacamm operates similarly and you can create a custom RGB color for your cutting line like I can with the PC60. Since the colors in the driver use RGB I used my birth date for RGB.
Also having done exactly what you are asking about hundreds of times, I would strongly recommend the contour approach over the converting outlines to an object. Use the docker for this, not the interactive contour tool. That way you can adjust the contour width in very small increments until you have the contour that gives you the "outline" look you want.
twodaytshirts said:if the Versacamm operates similarly and you can create a custom RGB color for your cutting line like I can with the PC60.
twodaytshirts said:Use the docker for this, not the interactive contour tool.
Sorry for trying to be such a pundit.
Thank you everyone for your help. As mentioned in my original post, I knew there had to be an easy way(s) to do this.
Best regards,