This is the base Inkscape template I put together for designs. It’s (approximately) the entire work area, with guides for the cutting and engraving margins.
Download it here (right click, Save link as…):
- Metric: https://lasercut.io/glowforge.svg
- Imperial: https://lasercut.io/glowforge_imperial.svg
Don’t try to upload this file to the Glowforge UI — it will just get confused. This file is purely for helping create designs within Inkscape.
To install the template
Open Inkscape and go to Edit > Preferences. Find System in the list on the left (should be towards the bottom) and then the User templates directory. Click the handy Open button to open the folder. Copy the template there, restart Inkscape to pick up the changes, and that’s it!
Alternative installation method
If for some reason you don’t want to open Inkscape to find the path, then you can probably install the template by copying the file to ~/.config/inkscape/templates/
on Linux/Mac, or %appdata%\Inkscape\templates
(yes, literally that, percent signs and all) on Windows. You may have to create one or more of the directories along the way, and the paths may have changed over time.
Windows note: %appdata%
should end up getting replaced with something like C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming
.
Using the template
Simply select File > New from Template… or hit Ctrl-Alt-N. Then find the “glowforge” template, click Create from template, and you’re ready to get started! If the template isn’t listed, you may need to quit and restart Inkscape before it shows up.
The new document should start out looking something like this:
The margins are based on the values in the UI for medium maple plywood at 1000 speed on a basic model. I haven’t yet checked to see if they’re the same across all materials and I don’t have a Pro. However, making large rectangles along the guidelines does seem to just about fit within the boundaries (and doesn’t grey out the design). Common guides are blue, cut guides are pinkish, and engrave guides are purplish.
Important note: there is an invisible rectangle in the background around the edges of the page. It shouldn’t get in your way, but it’s responsible for aligning things correctly. Do not delete it! It won’t show up in the UI as a part of the design, but still gets used for offset calculations.