Today we are on the final tab of the Transform Panel – the Shear tab. This Panel is available if you have the Designer Edition upgrade to the software.
This is another tool that is often overlooked. Why would you use it?
You can change the look of a basic shape, design or even font to give it a new look.
The Shear tab is found on the rights side of the Silhouette Studio v4 under the Transform Panel.
Below I have a few examples of how you can use this tool to change the look for a font or design.
Let’s check it out and see some examples.
- Horizontal Shear Preset- Shear or skew by preset degrees on a horizontal line – choose between -30, -15, 0, 15, or 30 degrees.
- Horizontal Custom – Shear or skew by typing in a custom number and it will shear to that degree on the horizontal line.
- Vertical Shear Preset – Shear or skew by preset degrees on a vertical line – choose between -30, -15, 0, 15, or 30 degrees.
- Vertical Shear Custom – Shear or skew by typing in a customer number and it will shear to the degree on the vertical line.
- Show Shear Handles – Check the box to show the Shear Handles that you can grab and skew your design manually instead of putting in a certain degree designation.
This can make the designs or shape you have in your library go a lot further when you know that you can manipulate and change them.
For instance, I took 2 basic shapes and created this rough sun design.
By cutting a circle in half, I created the main sun part. Then I took a rectangle and used the Shear Handles to manipulate each copy of the streaks.
Want to give your signature a more realistic slant to how it would be written?
Do you have a font that does not have the Italic option? Then create your own.
Whether you are creating your own designs or just want to play around, the Shear tool is definitely something to play around with.
Enjoy !
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Hello! I’m having trouble cominbing ‘shear’ with ‘offset’. This is for a cheer uniform and I really need to be able to do both. While the offset appears normal it will not subtract all the letters. (it subtracts fine if the font is in normal position but when it has been vertically sheared I can only get the first or last letter to subtract. Any thoughts? I even updated my software (though it was already current) to make sure it wasn’t a glitch that had been fixed.
Jane – Is the text all grouped together? When you do the offset, have you grouped the offset together? If you post this and photos on my Silhouette Facebook group – we might be able to troubleshoot – find that here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/432548673582300/
I just tested and was able to get it to subtract but all the text had to be grouped together and all the offset had to be grouped together – 2 separate groupings… then it subtracted correctly.