How to set design to cut!

I am trying to understand how to set the GF to cut. It continues to say BITMAPs cannot cut.
I designed it in Inkscape. Can someone help me?

A bitmap can only engrave, you need a vector to cut.
Using the pen in Inkscape and draw a line, that’s a vector. You can go to “Path>Trace bitmap” to convert an image to vector.
If all you want is to cut out a design you need to draw a vector around it.
Hope that helps.

Welcome to the community!

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There are some guides here.

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You need to create strokes/paths to cut or score.

Inkscape (and other design apps) can work with both raster/bitmaps and strokes/paths. SVG files can contain both, which is convenient when you want to embed an engrave into a cut shape.

Beyond that, you need to provide some detail on what you are doing.

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If you go to the Tips and Tricks section the very first post is a set of pointers to all sorts of tutorials. Work through a couple of them. If you run into problems you can’t figure out ask for help. Here is a direct link to it.

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Thank you for the great answers, everybody! I’m sorry for the confusion. The SVG or PDF file needs to contain lines called “strokes”, which are turned into cuts.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a shape to cut. If you’d like a little more depth, we have a longer tutorial that walks you through creating a design so you can see how to create a file with cuts in it. It includes step by step instructions and illustrations, including how to use Inkscape to create shapes for cutting.

Please try out the tutorial and let us know if it doesn’t work to get you cutting!

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It’s been a little while since I’ve heard back from you. I hope that’s because everything worked out! If not, just let me know and we’ll get it solved.

Got it, it is working better now. Thanks

I am so glad you got your print working, that’s great news! I am going to close this thread now. If you have any other questions or if an issue arises please feel free to start a new thread or email us at support@glowforge.com.

Happy Printing!