which software?

[ian_uk]

Have you tried corel draw, you can also download signcut pro which allows you to cut from your plotter using corel draw..

It costs about £30 from pc world 🙂

[Bill Dewison]

I’m a great advocate of CorelDRAW, but for cutting I have to admit, its not the greatest tool in the signmaker’s arsonal.

Second hand copies of SignLab are available for ridiculously low prices, especially version 4.95, and it is a great piece of software for cutting. Design wise I can’t get the hang of it, but cutting, weed boxes etc. its just the job. I believe FlexiSign is a good all round package, easy for design and for cutting, but CorelDRAW and SignLab combined is an awesome package and very, very fast if you learn the process back to front 😀

Other options include SignGO (very reasonably priced at about £200) or Vinyl Master Pro (again, far cheaper than Signlab/FlexiSign).

Cheers, Dewi

[Andy Gorman]

I’ll second what Dew says. I use Coreldraw and Signlab. I prefer designing in Corel, but do all cutting from Signlab. Also, Signlab caters for the one major weakness of Coreldraw: outlining.

Also, Coreldraw is as cheap as buttons. If you can get a copy, version 9 is virtually the same as version 12.

[Nicola McIntosh]

i third what dewi says and second what andy says!! 😀 corel for printing on pc60 but still design everthing with signlab and use it for cutting…pc60 cuts like a tank!! 😮

Nik

[John Childs]

Adobe Illustrator for me. It will do anyhing I want to do and you can keep it up to date without spending a fortune.

An add-on module allows you to cut from it although, purely from a convenience point of view, we prefer using a seperate programme for this.

[Steven Griffiths]

quote johnchilds:

Adobe Illustrator for me. It will do anyhing I want to do and you can keep it up to date without spending a fortune.

An add-on module allows you to cut from it although, purely from a convenience point of view, we prefer using a seperate programme for this.

Whats the add on module called? Sounds interesting.

I use possibly all software going, Corel, Illustrator, Flexisign pro, Photoshop, Streamline….. I find that each one has its ups and downs, take Corel, it has the add perspective feature which is simple to use but illustrator hasnt.
But for designing I usually stick to Illustrator or Corel for the simple reason that it shows a smoother image whilst designing, hate all the jagged edges in flexisgn and so on. Doesnt give you a real feel for the fineshed result.

[John Childs]

I was afraid somebody might ask!!!! 😀

I’ve never used one myself because tieing up a design computer with a mundane task like running a cutter doesn’t really suit the way we work, but I have read that such things exist, also plug-ins for running printer/plotters.

Here’s one. http://www.magisign.com/

But if you do a google search I am sure you will find plenty of others, for both Mac and PC at reasonable prices.