Update: this post applies to Silhouette Studio version 2. If you have version 3, please refer to the updated chart here instead.
It turns out that the question about what file formats Silhouette Studio can use is not all that easy to answer, partly because the facts vary quite a bit from the official Silhouette America information. I think I got it sorted out and into chart form. Hope this is helpful to some of you. Click here for a printable PDF (applicable for V2 only).
If you need help understanding the difference between vectors and bitmaps, this video should help.
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Thanks for the cheat sheet.I love you tutorials.
Blessings,Jocelan
Thanks for this information. It is very much appreciated.
have a happy day,
Jogry/bali
Thanks so much, Kay! This is very helpful!
This is great. Thanks!
Just found your site and really appreciate that you are willing to share your talent. Thanks so much
this clears it all up! many thanks indeed x
You are so good at this. Do you know how to use Embird (an embroidery software) to do embroidery and appliques of Silhouette designs on a sewing machine? I know it is done and the idea is mind blowing.
thank you again!
Thank you Kay – this continues to put some of the stuff you’ve already taught us into perspective, allowing the penny to drop a bit more each time.
I look forward to receiving an email in my inbox each time you post…
Paula x x x
Many many thanks Kay. I’ve saved it to refer to. Very helpful! You did all the research and the work. I appreciate it.
D
I only have one question. I’m supposed to buy one, but is it easy to merge an adobe file like .psd or .ai to a cutting file.
Jordane,
As the chart shows, psd files are no problem, ai files depend on several factors.
Could you explain me more precisely how it works ?
Jordane,
The Tracing without Tears video series (also on this blog) should answer your questions.
Awesome Kay … thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
I have watched dozen of tutorials on importing svg’s to the SDE, especially the drag and drop into library. I cannot for the life of me, get this to work. I have email silhouette and got a not so nice nor helpful response. Since dragging and dropping does not work for me, i try to open an svg from my desktop, it wil open onto a mat, but then when i say— save to library, it is not ANYWHERE in my library. I hope you can email some/any help. Thank you so much!!!
I have not heard of this issue Michelle, but I will tell you most of use don’t save our SVGs in the library anyway. Just open them as you need them and save the resultant studio files to a folder on your hard drive. Then if you wanted to, you could import that studio file back into your library and you’d have a backup copey for safekeeping as a side effect.
I just read on some sites that without the designer edition of studio, we cannot open .svg files or cut them? I was able to open but it’s got a white square background behind it and it doesn’t look like it’s cuttable 🙁
You most likely opened the preview of the SVG and not the SVG itself. You can trace it like any other jpg or png. You will need the Designer Edition to open and cut SVGs without tracing, or you can use Inkscape to convert them to DXF and open them that way.
I had a SVG file that I opened with Inkscape and saved as a .dxf but can not open it in Silhouette. Is there a trick for that?
Be sure it has the dxf suffix and also try the different DXF import options under Silh Studio preferences.
Save your Svg in Inkscape as a desktop cutter file , when the next box comes up save as a ROBO