Here is a cut i just made horizontal 11"…
The 11.5 in cut i make on the small hardwood with centered on the tray
The software ALWAYS does what it should. If it is not acting as you expect it is something you are doing or expecting that is different from what is is programmed to do.
It could be a setting like the correct thickness or as has been the case elsewhere a loose wire making it not work as expected. Even bugs are programmed in and will repeat with the same circumstances.
Given that as a starting point knowing that the program is doing the same thing everywhere eliminates a whole range of possibilities and the logic from there is much easier and almost always something you can control 
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They have stated that 11.5" is the intended height and 20.4" is the intended length.
They’ve also stated as recently as in the last couple of weeks that the current limits are just under 11" (I also get just 10.9") and 19" with the engrave area even smaller.
I’ve only seen one report of anyone getting more than that. Maybe he’s running some beta sotware version of the GFUI since they have said expanding the usable area can be done through software.
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So far as I can see it can only be done through software, at least at the current hardware, and I do not expect that they will announce that all the Glowforge Pros are actually PRUs and we can exchange them. To even get beyond 20" would take a new crumb tray and major surgery on the machines. the occasional sacrificial MDF or whatever is cheapest would not be a terrible idea just to keep up. Two overlapping 8x19 inch rectangles with one side open could be scaled and moved to the point just before they winked out and that it would be the largest you could make till the next update.
Here is a SVG anyone can use to do that job …
Yep. The current area is a bit larger than the PRUs started with. They’ve made at least one software update to the usable area.
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Even the third digit can make quite a difference as I discovered using this…
I make software for a living, I know it doesn’t always do what the spec says it’s supposed to! The spec says 11" (I think they downgraded it from 11.5" at some point due to deceleration issues).
So, the question is, why does it think it can’t do the entire 11" on the bed for my machine but does for yours? Do you have the passthrough or the basic? There aren’t a whole lot of dials for me to tweak, this is pretty much autopilot. Speed really isn’t the issue either, FWIW. I set cut speed to 500 (highest I could) and it was okay for 10.97. Then I switched to engrave, but set the speed to 500 and it was not okay, even though I hadn’t moved the image at all. I had to drop engrave speed all the way to 120 to make it “fit”.
Clearly it is doing something different, the question is why, and where is the dial I can turn?
They originally advertised 20x12. Then changed that to a “target” of 20.4x11.5 which caused a lot of distress on the forum. Then awhile ago they updated the main site to show the current specs so as not to confuse new buyers who haven’t had the history of the pre-release buyers.
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Did we just confirm that the new dimensions only allow less than 11” wide? That’s disappointing.
I have the Pro with the passthrough, but as far as I can tell there is not much difference at the place of the passthrough except the hole in the door. For everyone, the actual limits of the software are different from one week to the next (usually an improvement). When I first got mine even three passes of the sane cut did not land in the same place, now I cal almost eyeball a cut where I want it something that was not close before and the camera alignment does not change over time as it used to.
I had the GFUI keep all my settings for a few hours and then quit doing so as someone was changing the software now there is different and much better but it still does not set the thickness automatically.
If I did not know when I bought it the amount that Gowforge is edging toward expectations is almost never announced but always a moving target, then a fair part of the threads in the forum both in complaints and kudos has qued me into the fact.
The best that can be said is all the ways we have posted as workarounds, sometimes to discover that the workaround no longer works or is no longer necessary… I worked in AutoCAD for years and while the changes were more regular all the expectations and issues about what was promised and what was delivered were of a much greater variety than this.
The 11" nominal spec is for the height not width. Front to back of the bed. Width is the current 19" nominal size.
But yes, 10.9(& maybe 10.975) is the max height except for one person claiming 11.5" for cuts.
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Just retested my limits the other day on some wide cuts…Height is 10.95 inches. Width is 19.45 inches.* One tick down and one tick right from the origin at 100% zoom is necessary to bring the object into range.
*Note: You could probably squeak out another 0.02" in either measurement, but those make good design parameters if you don’t want to struggle with placement.
Hmmmnnn…that really doesn’t show anything until you zoom the photo a couple of times…sorry.
Thanks for the help everyone. Glowforge, what’s the deal? Can you tell me some way to get 11" of cutting width? I have a project I’d like to get done in the next couple of weeks. I already resized it once to accommodate the shrinking print bed. Do I need to re-do all the work again?
Mine has always maxed out at 10.97".
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I think you’re creating some confusion in your own thread. You can get just short of 19.5” in width. You can get just short of 11” in height. Both dimensions depend on the operation and speed. There is no way to override that right now.
You can create a jig in order to allow for alignment to cut larger pieces in two operations. There are numerous posts in the forum where people have had to do that; even on basics. I have cut up to 14” in height so far by using such a jig.
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You can also get more height by using the snapmarks. (You have to have an inverted pair to print, and a right-side-up pair to match in the file.)
Okay, 11" in height then. The spec says 11 inches, not “just short of 11 inches” and I’ve set the speed to the lowest setting possible, which tells me the software is not doing what the spec says it should, so I was hoping GF could fix that or suggest a way for me to change it. If 0.03 is one step of the motor controlling the head, maybe GF can round the other direction?
I can go through and adjust the CAD to be just short of 11 inches and make the print still work. It might be interesting to try out the snap marks idea (though I don’t really want the marks on the finished product). But I already re-did the piece from 11.5, so I was hoping not to redo it again.
No, the spec says:
That has been updated a number of times over the course of the development, and is less than originally planned (although depth of cutting area was increased), but I believe @dan has stated that the intention is to eventually increase the cutting area. Unfortunately, until that happens, we have to use work arounds.
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Let’s be clear. While there may come a day when it’s possible, there is currently no way for you to cut 11.00" vertically. I hope that answers your question.
I was going off what cust support said when I couldn’t cut 11.5". I was told 11x19.5. So I re-did everything to 11. Sigh. Metric system.
Again, thanks everyone for the help and advice.