Is there a way to make stamp if you don’t have inkscape or Illustrator or Photoshop? I have a PDF and a bitmap file that is reversed and inverted but it isn’t uploading to Glowforge properly. I don’t have Illustrator or inkscape so I was wondering if anyone else has had any luck making a stamp (an image not words) without using those programs.
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You’re going to need some sort of design program. Once you get one, you can follow one of the tutorials here in the forums.
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Step 1, download inkscape and install.
Step 2, design and mirror.
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You do know that Inkscape is community-developed, free (open source) software, right?
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Have you tried saving the PDF file in a different format, like JPEG? If you are comfortable with the snipping tool, you could bring up your picture, capture it with the snipping tool, and save it as JPEG.
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You will need to make a cut line and that has to be vector. The part you want raised to apply the ink to will be what is not engraved. The engraved part can be raster like PNG or jpeg. Inkscape is free. There is a learning curve to this but there are many resources you can use from this forum to YouTube.
:o)
The PDF you provided is actually a pure vector file, not a bitmap. It has some issues with overlapping elements, and a more shades of white than makes sense to me. It is also pretty big for a stamp at full size.
I did a trim operation in AI, and got rid of the white bits, then rasterized it with a transparent background and added a red box around it as a cut line.
If you are for whatever reason unable/unwilling to use a vector program, using the snipping tool or a screen shot could get you a raster image, which you could engrave into stamp material and cut out by hand.
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Now THAT is a helpful post!
@glink9416, bite the bullet and learn to use free Inkscape. Without something like it, your fancy laser cutter is a box full of wasted potential!
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I use autocad to create most of my designs because it is a program I am comfortable with. I’ve made plenty of designs over the past year with using AutoCad and it has worked 99% of the time up until this stamp thing.
Pretty sure if you can handle AutoCAD, you can handle Inkscape. Can’t hurt to learn something new. 
Good luck with your stamp! It’s a beautiful image.
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I was able to convert the mirrored/inverted image to a JPG file easy enough (I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before!) and import it into the GlowForge Program…will play around with the settings tonight to see if this works. I appreciate everyone’s input! I just downloaded inkscape so I’m excited to learn a new program - and I love how it is free!
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