Adobe Pdf Cutter

[Ceumar Pee]

Anywayhere's my situation. I have an Epilog laser cutter, the best in the business. For years I've used AI without incident as the software interface with my laser cutter. All the sudden, about a week ago, AI began showing the screen I posted in the previous post. I've never seen it before. This appears when I click on the Setup button in the Print Dialogue box. The screen used to go directly to the Epilog settings page. Now, when I print through this AI box, the measurements are widely inaccurate -- and I'm talking six inches, not three millimeters.

Monika, thanks for your response. That makes a lot of sense. Yes, I always update the AI software. That could be the problem here. But I think the root cause is likely another culprit. The tech people at Epilog (the laser company) had me update their software to their newest version. That's when the problem started. However, I've gone in and deleted that version and reinstalled my original program, but that box still keeps popping up.

Scott can you tell me did you resolve this issue. I am a school teacher and they have just updated our laptops to W11 and I have now began to encounter the exact same problem as you and it is absolutely driving me nuts. Even the Width and Height settings of my media are reversed and appear so in the adobe print dialogue box. I cannot seem to get the corrrect setting no matter what I do and the resetting to default every time you open the Epilog pint manager is just rediculous. Any giudance would be greatly appreciated. Regards Shane

I'm kind of surprised you can use a laser cutter directly in Adobe Illustrator via an ordinary print dialog box. Usually these specialty devices require their own stand-alone software to drive them, such as the software RIP applications I use with large format printers at my workplace.

I think the first trouble-shooting step to check is to see if there are any print driver updates for your laser cutter. Does the laser cutter have its own bundled stand-alone application. Or is it just intended to use via Adobe Illustrator?

Bobby, thanks for your post. I probably wasn't as clear as I might have been in my OP. The Epilog does have its own propriety software that meshes very nicely with AI. I've been using it for years without a hitch. However, in the process of troubleshooting this issue, I discovered that the glitch is 100% caused by AI, not the Epilog software.

The way this is simple. If I run the file and print directly from the Epilog print dialogue box, the image prints perfectly. The problem? That box does not give me control over the controls of the laser cutter, which are speed, power and resolution. In the past,

If the Epilog software operates as an Illustrator plugin either the problem could just as easily be due to an problem with the plugin as it could be with Illustrator itself. I use Astute Graphics' huge suite of Illustrator plugins and they frequently release updates to fix bugs as well as introduce new features.

Since the laser cutter/engraver is functioning as a "printer" the problem may involve how the "print driver" is working with the computer's operating system. That white Print dialog box in the images you posted looks nothing like the Print dialog box I typically see in Illustrator or other Adobe applications.

Bobby, BTW, the blue and white print dialogue box is the EPILOG box, not AI's. This is the box I MUST get to to adjust my laser settings. If you look in the lower right corner of that image, you'll see slider settings for Speed, Power and Frequency.

The problem is, the AI dialogue box photo I posted in my OP now forces itself between the two boxes, whereas before I could hit Setup and the blue and white box would pop up automatically. To make matters much worse, the AI box does not save my print settings, so I have to reset these settings in the blue and white box every time I make a new cut.

I was referring to the white dialog box in the image attached to the first post of this thread, not the blue and white dialog box containing the Epilog controls. The white box looks like something displayed by the Windows operating system rather than the print dialog box Illustrator shows when the print command is selected. The notion the dialog box has an "add printer" option listed makes me wonder if the Epilog device's print driver is working properly.

BTW, I have a lot of experience using CorelDRAW. The application has made some decent improvements in recent years, but there are other issues that remain un-fixed. CorelDRAW is very popular in the sign industry. However, since I do a lot of large format print work and handle a lot of corporate branding assets I have to use Adobe's software (Illustrator in particular) to complete the projects.

This led to a restriction where only posters with a certain level of participation are trusted with the ability to edit posts. Which level has never been expressly mentioned, but undoubtedly many know it.

Jacob, thanks for clarifying. I totally understand and appreciate that. I'm always amazed at how many people in this world try to scam other human beings. If they worked as hard at a legit profession, they'd probably be very successful. But there's something about the thrill of the chase, the adreline rush one gets from doing something naughty, that motivates them. I'll never understand it.

Thank You,

People running scams is just another form of that old human desire to get rich quick. It's human nature for people to want to take short cuts to get there. For some people the short cuts involve scams or outright stealing. The funny thing is these folks often end up hurting themselves as badly or even worse than their victims.

Have you tried sending the image to Epilog Job Manager? Once you are in Job Manager what is the image preview showing? I often use Ps when sending images to the laser. The only downside are is I can only print. The lines as I recall for vector cutting have to be .001. Ps can only go to .05. I have a copy of the Zing manual. You can also go to the Epilog website. They have awesome tech support. You also may want to try to print to Acrobat. I have also experienced problems with sending files from AI to the laser. This may be the reason Epilog uses Corel.

Does anyone have any clear understanding on using Illustrator with a GCC Expert cutter? There is little to no support or available help and tutorials on how this works and I am all out of trial and error ideas to make this work properly. I would love someone who has an understanding of this so I could pic their brain on some basic use!

Its not a questions of knowing Illustrator, and I definitely know Illustrator. Its how to understand getting your images to cut properly with the driver provided by GCC. It doesnt always want to cut everything you have drawn and there is also no way that I can tell to control where on your vinyl it will actually cut. Its a horrible driver and the support for it has been horrible also. The same company created GreatCut which Im also not liking for much of the same reason. Though it seems to work better than going through Illustrator but its also a pain to use and the support is horrible, mostly from a language barrier. The program also feels like it was made in the 90's or early 2000's. Its just been an all around nightmare trying to get to use successfully.

Hello, did you ever find a solution to this? I too have issues and I have been a graphics professional for 25 years. I can't figure it out to save my life. I can't even get Illustrator to recognize my driver!

I use illustrator and greatcut but I dont send my file to greatcut through illustrator. I copy image from illustrator and paste it in greatcut. Then in greatcut I go to file/output and it sends file to cutter. I am not a pro by any means so this may very well be a bad way of doing it. I am curious to what you think about it though cause you have much more experience than I do.

Does anyone know of a cheap plugin for cutting vinyl directly within illustrator CS3 for MAC OS 10 snow leopard? ... or a utility that will do the same thing on a Mac?

I dont want an all singing all dancing program that will cost hundreds of pounds and allow me to design the artwork etc, i just need to cut the vectors that i will create in Illustrator, so a plugin would be ideal but despite searching I cant find anything for a Mac.

Thanks also to Scott Falkner, i followed your link and contacted www.graphtecamerica.com who make the plugin Cutting Master 2 for a link to download the free plugin. I am not sure yet if it even supports my plotter but i will give it a go.

It would be nice if Adobe could make a plugin that does the job, just a plotting driver that will allow you to cut from Illustrator on a mac. I have searched high and low for a mac plugin and can seem to find any...... I AM AMAZED! and dissapointed at the same time.

I understand the frustration. Being I'm in the signmaking business I do all of my graphics inside Adobe Illustrator saved in a CD (CorelDraw format) which has a plug installed called SignWorks (Windows OS). Unfortunatly all signmaking software is Windows OS. Reason for that is when signs were first done by handpainting it later transitioned into the digital world (1990) by a proprietary company known as Gerber Scientific. Gerber is neither windows or mac but manufactured a letter cutting machine. Gerber was also the first signmaking machine manufacturer. Their first product meeting this digital signmaking era was the Signmaker 4B. It had a built in motherboard along with fonts and its cutting plotter sitting ontop of it. This was a complete signmaking machine which became known as the workhorse of digital signmaking. As the sign industry grew in particualarly the buildboard business large format printers got in the action and started developing software to work with their huge (25'-35') printers. At this point all of the software were Windows OS not Macs. In other words, Windows jumped in the action while Apple didnt have the confidence that it would be a profitable business investment. Unfortanantly they were millions upon millions of dollars wrong. I believe there was some kind of deal with Windows and the signmaking industries that may have locked the door legally keeping Apple outside the game. Why they didnt pursue getting in the profitable signmaking industry developing Mac OS softaware remains a mystery till this day. That is why there is no cutting software (plug ins) to produce signs or graphics in a Mac OS platform that could've been used inside a vector program like Adobe Illustrator - it would have to done the way I do it but again it remains inside Windows when it has to go to a cutting plotter for production. So you may have to make that switch from Mac to Windows. Sorry for the lengthy history but that is basically was happen historically.

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