Print to SVG to create cutfiles

I am so excited, I just found a free print driver that will print to svg! Here’s how to use this technique to change a printable vector into a cut file.

1. Install PDFCreator version 0.98 or later (Windows only). This is a free open source utility.

Current download page

2. Choose a suitable vector image in a program or applet that has a print command (see pre-screened suggestions below) and click Print.

3. Choose PDFCreator from the list of printers in the Print Dialog window and click OK.

4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the PDFCreator dialog.

5. Choose SVG from the pull down list of file types at the bottom of the window, and choose a name and location for your file, and click Save.

6. From within SCAL or MTC, click the import SVG button and navigate to the location of the file you saved in step 5.

7. Once imported into SCAL2 or MTC, resize your image so you can see it well. If extraneous items appear (like a rectangle around your design or buttons from the Flash application), select all, break your image apart and delete the unwanted items. If letters or shapes overlap, you have to break apart the graphic and weld them.

Note: MTC has recently added path simplification and you may want to use it at this point in the process to reduce the nodes in your design.

8. Resize your image as desired and cut!

Here are things that I’ve tried successfully so far. I suggest you start with one of these to make sure you know it works:

• WordArt from MSWord (black outline, no fill, if using SCAL1 be sure no letters are touching.)
• ImageChef Word Mosaic (use black background, white text and right click on image to find Print command. Once SVG is imported, break it apart and remove extraneous items in SCAL2 or MTC)
• silhouette graphics in PrintMaster
• custom graphic generated in PrintMaster
• silhouette clip art from MSWord
• Wordle
• Hugware clip art in black and white .wmf format opened in default clip art application (works great in for making paper piecings)
• Coloring book pages from ColoringPlanet.com
• Image created in Funtime Scrapbooking Lite (contains way too many nodes, not recommended without simplifying)
• Tuckbox Creator
• Ideogram Box and Envelope Maker
• Vector PDFs such as paper crafting templates, etc. Tip: Look for crisp lines at a high zoom level to identify vector PDFs.

You should be able to “print to svg” anything you were getting vectors out of before using a PDF and Inkscape. Some things are a little too complicated to make it worth it to work with in just MTC or SCAL2. For instance, I was able to get a valid SVG with vectors from a stick figure generator, but it was too “busy” to clean up, at least with my patience level.