How to Work With Purchased Cuttable Files in Silhouette Studio

Courtesy of Terri Johnson

First, download & unzip the font. You will notice that it comes with several folders (formats) - SVG, DXF, EPS and PDF - along some graphics of the font. For the purposes of this post, I will be showing you how to use SVG files. You must have Designer Edition to open SVG files in Silhouette Studio, but you can basically work with the DXF format the same way, if you don’t have Designer Edition.

Now, in Studio, for the first letter, click on Open --> and navigate to the folder where the files are stored.  You will notice there are three sets of alphabets listed in each folder — Left, Right & Center. Each letter is designated like this: Left A — Left_A.svg;  Center A — Ctr._A.svg or Right A — right_A.svg.

Click on the Center letter you’d like to use - in my case - J. Now, you are going to notice that these come into Studio very small, but don’t size them now. Wait until you have all 3 letters on the page.

Next, go to the File menu bar, and from the drop down menu, select “Merge”. This maintains the page settings & brings the next letter into the same workspace, instead of opening a new page. Repeat for your 3rd letter of the monogram. You will notice that all 3 letters come in on top of one another - Not to worry, we will fix this. (I have zoomed in on this, so that you can see it better).

I would recommend zooming in on your design & then separate the letters to the left, center & right. In order to be sure they are spaced & aligned correctly, open the Align Window and with all three letters selected, select Align Horizontally --> Middle and then Spacing --> Space Horizontally. Once you have the letters spaced & aligned the way you like, again, with them all selected - Group together.

Now you are ready to size this monogram to any size you would like. And since this is an SVG file, all you need to do is open the Cut settings window & with your monogram selected - click --> Cut. Now you are all ready to cut!

The next is Suzanne Curlz Cuttable Font. This font is a little different from some other 3 letter monograms, in that it doesn’t have a true right, center or left hand letter. The letters are all upright, so they are not leaning into one another. Like the previous font, they come in multiple formats, and I’m using the SVG:

However, instead of Left, Center & Right - they come in 2 different sizes - that are designated by Upper Case & Lower Case. The lower case is your right & left hand letters of the monogram, while the Upper Case is the Center of the monogram. The 2 sizes designed to work together in the monogram. But the right & left hand letters will be the same - both lower case.

So, just like before, open the lower case t (first letter); then merge the Upper Case J (center letter) an​d the lower case A (right letter). Again, you will find that they come in small & on top of one another.

Simply drag them apart & repeat the align process above.  However, sometimes - due to the curly q’s on the letters - I find that I don’t like the default spacing. Its not always pleasing to the eye, so you may need to nudge your letters a little bit to make sure that they are spaced the way that you want them to be.

Once you have them spaced the way you want, Group them together --> Size to the desired size --> Turn on the cut lines in the Cut Settings Window! Its just that easy & you are done!

Hope this helps you when working with fonts that have been purchased from Cuttable Designs! Be sure to check out their other awesome cut files - and all of the freebies!!  And remember, their designs can be used for commercial purposes - AND - they offer custom digitizing of cuttable designs for both commercial logos and designs for personal projects. And they are currently on sale for 20% off! Use the Code “Custom” to take advantage of the discount!