I have been troubleshooting with Silhouette users since 2016, and we have answered a lot of questions during the years. One of the most common questions is “What is this?” and “Why did it just appear?” In this blog post, I’m sharing more details on 4 of the tools that are often confused with each other, how they get turned on, how to turn them off, and where to find more information on each of the tools. These 4 tools can be useful when designing in Silhouette Studio, but not all users utilize them or will use them all of the time. That is one of the great things about Silhouette is the choice of having the options to use a tool or feature. This is also one of those cases where if a user doesn’t know what a tool does specifically, they may never know that it can actually be really useful to them in their workflow.

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The 4 tools in Silhouette Studio that are often confused are:

• Crosshairs
• Center of Rotation
• Guides
• Text to Path Control Point

Watch the YouTube video on this topic on the Silhouette Secrets+ YouTube channel HERE and scroll down below to see additional information on each as well.

Crosshairs in Silhouette Studio

Crosshairs usually appear for 2 reasons.

1. Pressing the letter ‘H’ on the keyboard toggles it on and off.
2. A file is opened that the designer saved it with crosshairs on.

Typically we see crosshairs appear because a user thinks that they have activated Text Mode and it did not take. So when the letter ‘H’ is pressed on the keyboard, it toggles it on.

Crosshairs can be turned on and off 3 ways:

1. Press the letter ‘H’ key. If they don’t turn on and off, click on the design mat and then press ‘H’ again.
2. Open the Page Setup Panel, click on Tab 2, and click the Crosshairs button.
3. In the top left menu, under View, select Turn on Crosshairs.

Crosshairs are a Designer Edition upgrade feature and those on Basic will not see this available.

Find additional details on Crosshairs in Silhouette in this tutorial HERE.

Center of Rotation in Silhouette Studio

Center of Rotation looks like a little circle with crosshairs in the middle of it and appears in the center of a design typically.

This tool typically appears for 2 reasons also:

1. It can be toggled on and off by pressing the letter ‘O’ key with a design selected.
2. A design was saved with Center of Rotation on and was opened.

Again, if a user thinks they are in text mode and a design was selected, if the letter ‘O’ key is pressed it will toggle it on and off.

Center of Rotation is a Designer Edition feature and those using Basic will not have this option.

Center of Rotation can be activated or deactivated in 2 ways:

1. Press the letter ‘O’ key with an object selected.
2. Under Preferences, in the Defaults tab, Center of Rotation can be toggled on and off.

See additional information on the Center of Rotation in Silhouette Studio HERE.

Preferences can be found in 2 places in Silhouette:

1. On the Design tab, gear icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Top left menu, under Edit, then Preferences.

Additional information on Preferences can be found in these tutorials:

• Preferences – Selection Preferences
• Preferences – Tools

Guides in Silhouette Studio

Guides can be pulled from the rulers on the top or right side of Silhouette Studio. Guides are a Designer Edition upgrade feature along with Rulers.

These can be accidentally activated if clicking the mouse on top of the rulers or click & pull from the ruler area onto the design mat.

Guides can be deleted by clicking on one to activate it, it will turn dark blue, then press delete. Light blue color means it is not the active Guide selected.

Guide settings can be found under the Page Setup Panel, under Tab 2. Snap to Guides is by default always active, but unless you have a Guide placed on the file, you won’t see it work. Guides can be toggled on and off under this tab too.

Guides can also be found in the top left menu under View, then select the option desired.

Additional details on Guides in Silhouette can be found HERE.

Text to Path Control Point in Silhouette Studio

This control point appears any time there is editable text activated.

This is the control handle that is used to drag text to a path and have it snap to the path. This feature is always available on editable text and there is no way to turn it off.

Find more details on Text to Path HERE.

The April 2026 member exclusive tutorial for the Creative Community is an in-depth tutorial on Text to Path with advanced techniques too! Check out more details on the Creative Community HERE.

*Creative Community members watch for a cheat sheet on these tools coming soon to April’s forum!

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