Why You Can't Cut the Edge of Your Silhouette Design: V5 Send Panel

Did you ever go to the Send panel and tell Silhouette Studio to cut the edge of your design and it cuts all the internal areas too?

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Your software is not broken and you did not do anything wrong. The issue is your design is a compound path. Not sure what a compound path is - I got over it in detail here.

Let me show you exactly what is happening and how to fix it so you are able to cut only the edge of your design.

First, why this option even exists

When you send a design to cut, Silhouette Studio lets you choose which lines actually get cut.

Think about a sticker sheet. Sometimes you want each individual piece of the sticker to cut and sometimes you only want the outside edge to cut.

In Silhouette Studio V5 - the Send panel changed the titles and location of the cut line controls. What is called Cut Edge in V4 is called Use Outline of Selection in V5.

When Use Outline cuts Everything

Sometimes though when you select Use Outline of Selection, the internal areas of the design also get a cut line. The reason is because they are also an outer edge of the design - IF the design is a compound path.

Let's take a look at these two examples. It's the same exact design. In the one on the left the butterfly is two layers - the orange layer and the black layer. The black layer is sitting on top of the orange layer making the orange layer the ONLY outer edge. In this case the Select Outline Only gives us what we'd expect.

In the second example we have an orange butterfly with what appears to be white areas on the wing. Here when we choose Select Outline Only both the outer edge and all the internal areas also get a cut line.

The difference here is the white pieces are NOT their own layer and they aren't actually white. They are part of the same layer as the orange and they are actually transparent. Essentially they are a hole in the wing instead of a layer on top of the wing. The edge of each of those holes is also considered an outer edge.

This design is what is known as a compound path. What was originally two layers: the main part of the butterfly and the accents have been compounded into one layer making a single compound path.

The three second fix

Release the compound path.

Right click your design and select "Release Compound Path." Now - be warned those pieces that appeared to be white (because you were seeing the virtual mat throw them) will turn the same color as the other layer.

If you want them to be white (or any other color) use the Fill Color tool to give them a fill color.

Now when you go back to the Send panel and pick Use Outline of Selection only, there is an actual outer edge for it to find, and it will cut just that.

Good news for anyone wondering: this works exactly the same whether you are in V4 or V5. The concept or how the software acts has not changed at all.

Confused by the V5 Send panel?

This is honestly just one of the changes in the Silhouette Studio V5 Send panel.

I walked through the entire V5 Send panel - including a trap I don't want you to get caught in - in this month's Silhouette U video. Every setting, what it actually does, the compound path fix in action, and the issues that create a lot of headaches. You can see the full walkthrough here at Silhouette U.

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