Other than being able to ‘hack’ around the interface, will this machine ever have a truly “glowforge” pass through system?
If not, just let me know and i’ll stop telling people about the pass through feature.
To be honest, it’s not much different than people sticking magnets on their doors to defeat the tray size limitations…
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I put my money on it. 
They are still working on it. (And you can keep telling your friends about it.)
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I’ll keep this short, it’s elusive but it’s going to happen.
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Have you run the calibration? If you do that and use the Set Focus you should align everything very well,
If you really want precision, break your design into 10-inch chunks that overlap an 8th inch or so and make two eighth-inch square holes outside the design aligned with that overlap every ten inches and use headless bed pins to precisely locate the material.
Then if you shift the design using only the Up arrow (with the shift key for the larger jumps) and cutting the holes as you go you should be able to get very accurate long runs.
For myself, I break the eight-foot-long plywood into 5 -19-inch lengths and thus use the pass-through to use only as much of the four-foot-long result as I need so I make far less scrap and that alone gives me value.
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“break your design into 10 inch chunks”
I appreciate your reply, I really do. But this is a hack. A creative one that works, but it involves more man hours. Uploading one piece of art, 6"x18", that had to run a certain way along the grain of my piece, shouldn’t involve much. Not the way the machine was sold.
Thanks for the help though.
I have already put my money on it… Hope you’re right! Thanks for the reply.
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Me too! (And I’ve got a pretty good track record.) 
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Only one pair?
Run the calibration break the piece in two and just align it! 
Or just cut off 18+" of your material and rotate it.
Not many man-minutes in either case. 
I appreciate your response.
The material is 6 feet long with a repeating 18" pattern, so no cutting.
My point was when will we have the ability to upload art that can utilize the pass through feature without ‘hacks’?
I know I’m being pedantic but the most correct word is kluge not hack.
And yes, file preparation for a really long piece would be prohibitive.
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Unless there will be a mechanical drive the method I laid out with pins is what it will be in one form or another, and probably not as mechanical as that, The universe would not allow much more than lining up automatically what you can do for yourself lining things up presuming you have run the calibration.
I have made large tables and boxes that way overlapping so as to use all the area and sliding the sheet along with guide pins on each side but the entire design loaded at one time. I designed it without the pins but made it so a millimeter off would not damage the design. There is a lot I do that I could not accomplish without the passthrough. Call it a hack but everything will have a mechanism of what you have to do, know, or be careful about.
If you have not run the calibration, nothing will help, but a careful setup and a bit pf practice with smaller examples and your piece should work even without pins. Best to have that experience first however and that will take many man hours but will not be wasted effort.
Kluge
A software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task.
exactly.
You cannot currently load art that is larger than the print area. Perhaps a function to ‘blackout’ the larger art…
I’m no engineer but there must be a way… Here’s to hoping.
Ironically, it’s my mother in-laws maiden name… Never shared this with her though…
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Sure Ebeneezer Kluge - famous for tinker’s dams and baling wire repairs! Just made that up of course. Bet the name precedes the modern use.
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Succeeds! That is the key word. Unlike many things you might buy this is one that improves even as it sits there. When I got my Pro even the pins method would not have worked. Most things I have made recently would be junk if I tried with a machine as it was at first.
In the beginning every time the cut started or stopped the power was either on or off and it would make a hole and burn mark at every corner and the start stop point on a circle for example. It no longer does this as the amount of power is curved down based on actual speed. this is just one example of how the abilities and expectations have changed.
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Oh my, I never realized it was a family name!
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Like it or not (I don’t like it), Glowforge’s way is to not announce anything until it’s ready. They’re working on it, and they’re going to keep working on it until they decide it’s good enough to release, and only then can anyone answer the question “when?”
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My guess is that you kept pressing until the solution was delivered…