Where to begin? Vinyl Cutter

[dgriffin1]

Ok, I don't get the nuances of Xara's color and export machinery. I've got a specific task and am wondering how one would make it work, entirely within Xara, partially using Xara, or even to know if it requires another app entirely.

I have a vinyl printer that requires an EPS as RIP input...so far, so good, as it will accept Xara EPS files. But it also has a cutter, which interprets a spot color named "CutPath" as the cutting path.

Efforts to define and output a line in this spot color have proven fruitless(I can make Illustrator do it, but I wanna use Xara!). Xara seems to redefine any line as a normal color. I name and define a spot color, but when I go back and look at it in the color editor, it's turned back into a normal color.

What am I doing wrong? And will an exported Xara EPS contain the line defined as a named spot color?

Also: when you define the color space in "page properties", doesn't it change all the document colors to that color space? So why does the exported EPS still contain colors in both, say, RGB and CMYK when I open it in Illustrator?

Have mercy on my poor brain...this one's driving me nuts. Thanks.

David

[dgriffin1]

Ok, I don't get the nuances of Xara's color and export machinery. I've got a specific task and am wondering how one would make it work, entirely within Xara, partially using Xara, or even to know if it requires another app entirely.

I have a vinyl printer that requires an EPS as RIP input...so far, so good, as it will accept Xara EPS files. But it also has a cutter, which interprets a spot color named "CutPath" as the cutting path.

Efforts to define and output a line in this spot color have proven fruitless(I can make Illustrator do it, but I wanna use Xara!). Xara seems to redefine any line as a normal color. I name and define a spot color, but when I go back and look at it in the color editor, it's turned back into a normal color.

What am I doing wrong? And will an exported Xara EPS contain the line defined as a named spot color?

Also: when you define the color space in "page properties", doesn't it change all the document colors to that color space? So why does the exported EPS still contain colors in both, say, RGB and CMYK when I open it in Illustrator?

Have mercy on my poor brain...this one's driving me nuts. Thanks.

David

[raynerj]

Hi David,

Welcome to Talkgraphics! I am no expert, so pay attention to what the guys from xara, Gary or a couple others have to say.

From my limited experience, a color created in CMYK will be CMYK until youdo something that converts it to an RGB color. A blend, or a fade/transparency will make the color a RGB.

I can not help you with the cutpath color. I do not own a vinyl cutter, so have no idea where to go from there.

[Egg Bramhill]

David, welcome.
I have a friend with a Roland Vinyl cutter. I just load up Xara on his computer, and print directly from Xara. The results are perfect. Have you tried printing directly from Xara?
Egg
(I've also added 'Vinyl Cutter' to your post header to assist in searches)

[dgriffin1]

Hi, Egg! Thanks for weighing in on the topic. I should have made the subject line more descriptive.

I'm not exactly new here, I've used Xara for years and been on the forum, on and off, though not recently. I misplaced my logon info and had to sign up again.

I hadn't thought about printing directly from Xara! The Roland (it's an SP-300) is new, so I haven't experimented with it at all, and just assumed I had to go through the proprietary RIP software. Could you share the technique you use to print from Xara? How do you handle the cut path issue?

That would be far and away the best solution. Thanks for any help you can offer!

David

[gregraphic]

Hi David...I run a Mimaki jv3-250 and also Mimaki cutter...I've print & cut in separate operations from Xara but only by exporting the cut path to Illustrator or Draw and then using the plugin that comes with the Mimaki Rip to cut via the rego marks I've set up...the Versacam (which prints&cuts in one operation for those that aren't familiar with the beast) uses Colorip via Illustrator or Draw to do the same thing...I think. You set up a spot color as your contour path and Colorip sees that as your cutpath? I'm pretty sure you can do it by going through the Windows Driver that they supply. The downside to this is that you may lose some functionality by not going through the rip. I I know what you mean by doing everything from Xara..vector graphics and shadows print beautifully from it, so easy to layout signs etc. I've had some grief though saving as an .eps and then opening it in the rip. What I do is print directly from Xara to the rip by setting up a postscript custom page size and then edit the file in the rip and then print. You should be able to set up Colorip to do this as I know you can print directly from Quark, Freehand etc..it's the cutting path that will cause the trouble. Go to rolanddg.com or letterheads.com and have a look through the posts..you won't see Xara mentioned but there should be something relevant. In the meantime I'll have a look around myself.

[GerryI]

XaraX doesn't redefine your colours as normal colours when you open the colour editor. If you create and apply a new spot colour called CutPath then you should see a blob for it on the colour line (the circular one represents a spot colour).

If you just open the colour editor then XaraX defaults to editing the local colour of the object rather than any named colour that is applied to it. You can easily see which colours are being used by the little diamond shaped indicators on the colour line. Basically, if your spot colour has a little diamond on it when your object is selected then it is that colour. If you want to edit the spot colour (e.g. so it shows up better in your document) then drag the colour from the colour line and drop it onto the colour editor icon (or the colour editor itself). Then when you edit the colour, all objects using the colour will change.

I have examined the EPS generated when doing this and it does contain the correctly named spot colour.

Gerry Iles

[dgriffin1]

Thanks for the input, Gerry. I reviewed my understanding of Xara's color system based on your comments and now understand why the color editor is trying to default to editing the local color. Although I still don't quite understand the "local color" concept, I admit. Xara is so intuitive in most ways, yet I never have quite grasped the fundamentals of its color machinery. I'll be spending this morning reading the X1 forum and making another assault on my brain's resistance to absorb the color concepts.

General progress report on the Roland cutter:
I'm still chasing the solution. The suggestions to print directly from Xara worked great! Making me even more determined to try and use Xara for the entire process, including cutting.

The print driver manual gets down to this level of detail on its requirements for cutting instructions:

• The cutting lines must be drawn using vector data.
• The width of the cutting lines must be the narrowest setting possible with the program.
• The color mode for the cutting lines must be RGB.
• The color of the cutting lines must be something other than "RGB = 0, 0, 0."
• Color management must not be applied to the monitor display.
• In order to cut text, the text must be outlined (that is, converted to graphics).

It appears the demand for a named spot color is for the benefit of the RIP software (which I am bypassing in the tests), rather than the driver; however, I am including it in the output test files anyway, just to be sure.

I've tried a number of tests to no avail. Xara appears to only allow a minimum of .01pt for the line width, vs Illustrator's .001pt. Could that be it?

I'm going to try Roland's forum per gregraphics suggestion, but must wait until they approve my application! Apparently it's quite an exclusive club, they wanted my printer's serial number and my dealer's name before they'd consider my pleas to enter! If I am graciously allowed entry today I'll see what I can find there.

I'll try to get a solid answer on this and post it: it seems to me to be valid information a number of people could benefit from, so worthy of chasing down.

[dgriffin1]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I have examined the EPS generated when doing this and it does contain the correctly named spot colour. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How exactly DID you examine the EPS? It occurs to me that if I could do the same, I could generate an EPS from Illustrator that works, and one from Xara that doesn't, and compare the two, if I could open the EPS for editing.

[jclements]

Dgriffin1,

Are you sure the line weight can't go to .001?

The values shown by Xara in its Info Bar are always ROUNDED to the nearest hundredth, but I believe the true value (the input value) is held to the thousandth.