Open paths at last!

[firstcut]

Yeah, Ink .46 could be writing entirely different svg code for a line. That is one more variable we have to deal with. If you have .47, maybe you could try resaving it there and see if that makes a difference.

[Sweetness4713]

sweentness4713 what other unmetionalble company would that be? But if refering to the MTC program have you tried it and we are allowed to mention scal over there Andy doesn't delete our post if we do. each program has it s ups and downs and for one scal will charge you if they decide to come out with a new verion , ya for now they are updating because they are trying to keep up with MTC. When the next version of Scal comes out lets see if they let us get it for free, Andy has said once we buy MTC there is not going to be any new charges let see if scal will do that when they went from verion 1 to 2 we had to buy it if we wanted the upgrade. I own scal and MTC and MTC is more user freindly.

I wasn't knocking MTC.. I'm just completely happy with the updates SCAL2 has been doing... and I've never tried MTC and I'm sure it's a great program.. but to each his own...

[HeatherM]

Kay, the position of the file was the problem. I just recut (rescored?) the same file, but made sure that it didn't touch any of the boundaries and all of the lines cut exactly as they should and only once. Yay! Thanks Kay.

[firstcut]

Heather,
Giving you a virtual high five! Thanks for hangin in there with me to get this figured out.

[jojooakes]

Hi Guys, I am quite new to scal so any help would be great. I am an expert in illustrator and this is how I have been creating my paths. But my big problem is I need to cut open paths. After reading this post I find I have an older version of scal (2.008) that doesn't support open paths. I have a Cricut and didn't want to buy endless cartridges plus wanted to cut my own designs so I bought my scal on ebay after the scal v. Cricut fight! . Hence I can not get an update. So my big question is .... is there any way of creating a vector that doesn't have to double back on the cut as a closed path. I want to do pop up cards etc and when it double cuts a closed path it is really messy.
Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks

[gj1]

I guess Inkscape, which I think you already downloaded. You will learn it quickly. There are lots of tutorials to help...just google.

[angel]

can someone explain what an open path means? I have been wondering this for a long time. thanks.

[gj1]

A circle would be a closed path, or any image where the beginning meets the end and is joined. A open path would be a straight line where the ends don't meet, or an arch or an 'L' shape or any image that the beginning is not joined up with the end. They get used for details usually or the popup cards are another example.

[bagpiper03]

Hi Guys, I am quite new to scal so any help would be great. I am an expert in illustrator and this is how I have been creating my paths. But my big problem is I need to cut open paths. After reading this post I find I have an older version of scal (2.008) that doesn't support open paths. I have a Cricut and didn't want to buy endless cartridges plus wanted to cut my own designs so I bought my scal on ebay after the scal v. Cricut fight! . Hence I can not get an update. So my big question is .... is there any way of creating a vector that doesn't have to double back on the cut as a closed path. I want to do pop up cards etc and when it double cuts a closed path it is really messy.
Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks

I am in the same boat as you. I have SCAL v. 2.021 and Inkscape v. .48. I found that I could create the open paths in inkscape, but SCAL would always close all of my open paths before cutting. I tried everything to get it to stop doing it, but nothing seemed to work. And it had nothing to do with the SVG being to close to the edge of the mat, etc. Sure, if you draw your paths in SCAL, it would work fine, but I didn't want to do that. I am pretty used to Inkscape at this point and didn't want to use SCAL.

Plus, I do my art work on a PC in my office, then transfer the SVG to a laptop connected to my Cricut running SCAL on my work bench. I don't want to sit at the little junky, slow, laptop doing all of my work on SCAL (obviously not SCAL's fault, just my particular setup).

My solution was to create my SVG in inkscape, then after importing it into SCAL, use the "break apart" option in SCAL. That would restore the open paths to their open state, rather than leave the invisible cut lines that SCAL kept throwing in there.

It seems to work fine now.

HTH.