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can anyone give some advise with printers and software?
EDIT: Save time, skip down to my 2nd post in this thread. 🙂
I’m still researching which cutter to get and one thing that I am concerned about is software.
I love working with Illustrator and would like to print directly from it if I can. I noticed that the Roland 24" I was looking at comes with Windows drivers yet a guy as SSK said that it would not print directly from Illustrator but would from Corel.
I also noticed that the Roland Stika 15" comes with Cut Choice which says it works with Illustrator….
Would this program work with the 24" Roland? I was told it wouldn’t but shelling out another $400 on top of the money for a 24" cutter… makes me wonder if I shouldnt start off with a 15" with software I know will work instead.
Any recommendations on software are appreciated — I don’t need anything with bells and whistles because for the design end of things I can use Illustrator and I’m assuming any of the signmaker programs can import an eps file?
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7 Replies
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Hello again, well the time is at hand for me to finally order a cutter.
I went to a signmaker convention last month and got to see alot of machines and decided on the Roland CX-24.
So I’m still stressing about software.
Will I be able to print using the windows drivers? Or is it a must to buy special signmaker software?
Does anyone print directly from Corel even?
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hi, i think you might find sign tools 3 to be what you looking for, you can download a fully working 30 use version from asigns.com , i use to use this before i got posh with sign-lab7. its a bit temper mental, but once you get use to it, its best thing since sliced bread, works best with Coral draw 9,(which you can give your work space a illustrator layout, i think its under options, up their on the tittle bar somewhere) but i think theirs patches on the site for other software & versions,also has built in drivers for cx24 & lots of other cutters/plotters, best of all cuts from within Coral draw. Lots of links & advice on the site as well & if you like what you test, the softwares a fraction of the price of other stuff costing 5 or 6 times the price. I would still use it but for the fact i need print & cut for digital ripping, colour prints. Hope this helps. Pete . artrage By the way you can cut strait from Coral with no sign making software but sizes are limited easier to go & get sign tools, their is another package called co-cut, but not as good as sign tools so go & get. Cheers for now.
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Use signlab myself but from the help i have been reading all you have to do is put a cut line around it and tell illustrator what colour to cut as far as i am aware go to the roland website in the forums sure you will find advice there.
Hope this points you in the right direction.
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Hi.
My advice can only be limited because I use Apple Macs, although I am a dedicated Illustrator user. However, you might like to look to the future a bit.
It depends on the type of work that you are doing but when I started in this business I very quickly found that design and layout was taking up so much of my time that using my sole computer to run a cutter as well was a disruption and caused a serious bottleneck in production.
My answer was to buy another computer purely to run my cutter. On its own cutting is a very simple task that requires hardly any processing power so it can be done with almost any old computer, maybe even second hand, so it doesn’t need to be an expensive exercise. It does mean that you will need standalone cutting software but it will give you a lot more flexibility and save hours of hanging about waiting for computers and repay the investment very quickly.
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Thanks for the replies!
quote :It depends on the type of workI will be cutting vinyl for stickers which I will sell at my store so I will be cutting the same designs over and over. I don’t plan on taking on much custom work. I already have the designs in illustrator format.
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I got the cutter to print directly from Illustrator 10 🙂
Also, I was happy to find that my Roland also came with a copy of Corel 11 and the Dr. Stika Plus program, so those are to be my backups. The ReadMe file that came with the cutter listed a bunch of changes to make to print from Illustrator — setting line width, etc, and after I did those and adjusted paper size setting it all worked 🙂 Just thought I’d post in case anyone else searches on this topic in the future.
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Hey OffLine Girl,
I would love to hear the route you took to cut direct from Illustrator. It is something I have been wondering about for some time, as occasionally I need to work back from my digital printing and get retro with good old fashioned cutting!
I design primarily in Illustrator, and while I can cut on my Grenadier printer/plotter by assigning a cutpath, I have yet to work back to sending to the old Roland plotter.
Currently I save out the job and cut it via Signlab, but surely there must be a more direct route that eliminates that extra step and allows plotting direct?
Any more ideas form anyone? C’mon Rodney, you KNOW you have an answer for a fellow Southern African!!
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