Prints are not printing where artwork is placed as shown in live preview

Community Support
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Hello all! I just got my GF Basic yesterday and so far I love it! A problem I’m having is getting things to print were I place them in the GF UI screen. For example, I’m trying to print 1" round wood keychains but the print keeps printing off center even thought the preview shows it’s center before printing. Am I missing something? What’s the best file type to print/engrave with the GF? Some say SVG, others say PDF and even others say PNG. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

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Have you tried using the “Set Focus” on the area prior to making your print?

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First you need to run through all the setup stuff, You can get “something” easy enough but after all the setup improvements you need to go through those as well.
first go here https://app.glowforge.com/maintenance/camera-recalibrator and set the camera calibration as every machine is different and if you move the Glowforge from one place to another you will probably have to do it again.

Once you have done this the set focus command should make things very precise.

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Thank you for the help @ellingtonmd and @rbtdanforth!

I extracted the logs from your Glowforge and it looks like you’ve recalibrated as @rbtdanforth suggested. Could you let us know if that resolved the issue for you?

As far as what file type to use, it mainly depends on the use and what you’re comfortable working with. Something to keep in mind is that JPG and PNG files can only be used to engrave. PDF and SVG files can be used for both engraving and cutting.

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Thanks for the reply. Yes calibration fixed the issue. Could you direct me to a good tutorial for prepping photos for engraving on acrylic? Wood? Some images of how the prepped photo should look prior to engraving would also be helpful. Thanks! I love this thing!

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Just do a quick search in the forum. It’s why you’re here having fun. Most all of the questions that hit usually have some great topics that hit and are already running in the forum.

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I’m so glad to hear it worked! Also, that’s a wonderful tutorial - thanks for linking it @ellingtonmd! Another good resource that may help is this support article on prepping a photo for engraving.

Since this issue is resolved, I’m going to close this thread. If you run into any other trouble, go ahead and post a new topic or email us at support@glowforge.com.