Did you know you can change the line style of your designs in the Silhouette Studio? Today we are going to Explore the Line Style Panel which you can find on the right side of your v4 Silhouette Software program.
First, I want to mention that you can change the default that your software Outlines in under the Preferences Panel. Preferences can be found by clicking on the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the Design Tab or in the top left corner under the Edit tab.
Open the Preferences Panel and Click on the Default tab at the top. You can then change whether the Default Fill Style is ‘Solid Fill’ or ‘Outline only’ and whether the line color is Black or Red.
My program is set for outline only and red meaning that when I draw a shape it will show a red outline of my shape. This is a personal preference and you can change it at any time.
Now, let’s take a look at the Line Style Panel. Tutorial written in version 4.1.206
- Style – Choose from a variety of dashed lines.
Keep in mind that changing the line style also changes how it will cut. If you have a dashed line, that is exactly what it will cut. This works good if you are trying to make a score line for a card or template, but it doesn’t work well to cut a design out. - Thickness – Line thickness is defaulted to 0. That means if you were to print this design on your printer right now, it would not actually print anything because there is no line thickness. If you want to print the outline of a design, then you need to increase the line thickness.
- Corner – When using the line thickness, this determines if the corners of the design are round, flat or sharp.
- End caps – This option has flat, adds a square on the ends or rounds off the ends of your line.
- Position – When using thick lines, you can choose to have the outline in front of the design or behind the design.
The photo above has the Line Style Position in front of the design.
And this photo shows the Line Style Position behind the design. - Line Options – Print Lines of Selected Shapes – When your design is selected and you check this box, your Line will print with a line weight. Keep in mind, it will print in whatever color you have set up on the design screen. I changed mine to black for this example.
Here is my design:
And here is my printed page:
This is an awesome feature as you don’t have to change the line thickness to get a design to print unless that is the look you want. - Line Style Panel – Tab 2: Line Color – change the line color to any of those in the Color Palette, change the transparency of the line color or click on the Advanced Options and open up a lot more color options.
And that is the Line Style Panel! This can be very useful when you are printing designs, sending images to people, saving your designs as .jpegs (Business Edition feature) and so many more reasons. Take some time and play around with the Line Style options, you never know what you will learn!
For this tutorial I used a file from the Silhouette Design store called Mom’s Fidget Spinner by Sweet Afron #202772 – find it HERE.Check out the entire “Let’s Explore v4” series HERE.
Check out my Silhouette Instructions and Events tab for more information on Personalized Silhouette Instruction.
Enjoy !
THANK YOU for your support! How can you help? Click HERE & buy a coffee. Every little bit helps with the cost of running the site.
Looking for more in-depth, step-by-step classes, check out all of my online Silhouette classes on my Teachable site HERE.
**This post may contain affiliate links. What that means is that I may receive compensation if you purchase through the links I have provided. The price you pay for the product
I have a question and so far you are the only person to address this topic of lines – lines on the screen in design view – not cut lines. What is the purpose of automatically putting a line around shapes/text/etc of the line width is going to be 0.
Also it seems the line color is important in separating like objects in the Send screen. So black “lines”/”border” for object cut with black vinyl, red for red, yellow for yellow, etc….especially if they are not going to cut by default. Sometimes obects don’t have fills but they are “silhouettes” with thicker black lines that need to be cut around their edges while also cutting the insides out. And you’d need to cut those objects with the other black objects on the black vinyl but they don’t register on the Cut by Fill section….So line color can help with grouping.
I’m just thinking there is some deeper purposes that much smarter people than I have for automatically putting a line around objects and I can’t find any real closure as to why..
Can you help?
The line is your cut line, that is why it has a weight of 0. The only time it needs a weight is if you are printing it.
Even if you increase the line width, it still only cut down the middle of the line, unless you choose cut edge.
There are many ways to use the Line color, fill color, etc … And I really think it just depends on the user & what they are cutting. Each user will develop a way that works for them. But there are multiple ways to do things…..
I prefer to fill everything with color & most often use the simple tab & then move all my like colors to corners to cut. But some like to use the Cut by line or fill & not move the pieces at all. The same end project is accomplished.
But it needs a line program to register where to cut.
Is that what you mean?
That is what I mean except I’m more focused on the first part you said about cutting down the middle or cutting around the edges. That parts seems to be key. For example if I wanted to have a rectangle that had no fill (so you can see the fabric through it) it would need some outer edges to “exist”. I guess I could Offset the rectangle and then just cut the Offset and that would create the rectangle itself. Or I could increase the line width and choose to cut around the edges to create the rectangle.
I guess my question was which way is better and will result in a better “best practice” method where I’m less likely to run into issues in the future with designing and cutting. It seems to be the offset method and leave the line stuff set to 0 and use it for Cut by Line only??
I’m new to this software but not graphic design software. I am totally new to the vinyl cutting game. I’m just designing some things while I wait on my cutter to come in the mail. I’ve got the heat press already. Looking forward to creating some crazy stuff! Hoping to make a little money in the future…
Yes, I would use the Offset. That is how I would prefer to do it each time to yield the best results.
Personally, if I used the increase line width, I’d forget to cut edge & then it would cut wrong.
On the line style tab, what are the repeats, length of pattern and compressions used for. I tried playing around with it. Is it more for printing vs. cutting? Thanks in advance.
It is a new feature in the software that was recently released with v4.3. Yes, most often used for printing, however, if you choose Cut Edge on the line pattern, it will cut the edge of that pattern you have created.