Good afternoon. I’ve been using my Glowforge pretty much all day without any issues until I tried uploading and printing a new design a while ago. It keeps saying that there is no artwork, but the image of the design shows in grey on the screen.
If I open a design that I have already printed, it’s all good. But any new designs say there is no artwork and I can’t print them.
I’m really baffled. I did try turning everything off and on again. I made sure that the files were saved in Inkscape properly as plain SVG. I don’t know what else to do. This is so weird.
When I opened the first new file - a DANGER sign - and started to enter my settings, the “Beta” settings showed up for the first time. I was kind of thrilled and looking forward to seeing the speed at which the sign would engrave. And then the no artwork issue appeared.
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated. I have a bunch of orders coming up with new designs and I need to be able to print them.
Also… (it just occurred to me) Earlier I was engraving my business name onto a D&D dice box that I’m making and when I clicked on print, the entire thing shifted to the left. That’s never happened before. Any thoughts as to why it would do that?
Quick double check - if you haven’t set any settings then you’ll get that error - so either the list on the left should say Cut/Engrave/Score or 100/500 (or whatever your speed/power settings are)
If it doesn’t then it’ll give you the no artwork error
That was not the issue either. The image was within the printable area. I did have to re-size the DANGER sign as it was a little large. But the other were well within the printable area and even after entering the settings, the image remained grey and it still said no artwork.
Try doing a “select all” (Ctrl-A) and see if the whole selection is onscreen — sometimes a random bit gets inadvertently included in your design that’s outside the printable area.
I powered everything up again and I now get a really small printable area in the middle of the screen. If I reduce the size of the DANGER sign to fit in it, it will allow me to print with my chosen settings. The sides of the screen are now showing a “foggy” area that is about four inches in on both sides. What the heck is that all about!? LOL
It sounds to me like you are trying to engrave with the new settings. If you slide the margin slider to minimize the margin, the printable area should increase. Can you please supply a screenshot showing your artwork on the bed and the settings?
There’s a margin slider? I must be missing something. LOL
I can’t send a screenshot just now. I should have thought of that sooner. It’s engraving the Danger sign at the moment. Weirdly, when I reduced the speed, the foggy area - the margins increased and I was able to get it to print. But it did the cuts six times!
Thank you @geek2nurse, @jbv, @dklgood & @deirdrebeth for your help. I’m assuming this new software upgrade is going to take a bit of getting used to. I will figure out the margins thing. I see now that the speed influences the engraving area. It’s working now. That is a huge relief!
the most likely culprit for repeated cuts is duplicated elements in the design. The second most likely is when the stroke for a shape is set to the inside or outside, instead of being set to the centerline (although that is generally two cuts right next to each other, not six cuts in the same place).
I you can’t figure it out, and you feel like uploading the file and stating the design program you used, I’m sure someone will come along and help troubleshoot it.
I’m sure that’s exactly what I did. It’s happened before. I doubt I will be making this particular sign ever again, so I’m not going to get too worried about it. But that makes total sense.
That’s almost as big a relief as getting my Glowforge to work for me again was. LOL I sure do appreciate this community and all the support one can get here.
I’m glad you resolved it! I’m going to close this thread. If you run into any other trouble, please start a new topic, or email us at support@glowforge.com. We’re here to help!
you are not alone.