Change this to your initials by typing them in.

Notice this is inverted?

That’s because it’s selected! 

Press V to select the Selection tool, and then click on the text.

Now click on the object menu option, and click on Expand. 

This blue square represents the text object ‘AB’ is selected. 

This opens the Expand window. You will want the object and the fill checked.

At the bottom, Click OK.

Now, with your object selected,  click CTRL + SHIFT + G This will ungroup your object. Or on the top panel click object, ungroup. 

What ungrouping means, is that you can select each letter Individually because they are no longer grouped together. 

Grouping helps manage design objects so you can select them together with one click.

Press V on the keyboard, and give it a try! Select one of your new objects. 

Now, we are going to scale our object to a uniform size. Click on one corner of the object (the square point), but careful because you can stretch the image. To keep it from stretching, hold shift while you grab the edge and scale it. 

Click SHIFT + CLICK + DRAG
This will scale your object evenly.

Now, press the A on your keyboard. 

We have just selected the Direct Selection tool.

With these two tools, the Selection tool and the Direct Selection Tool, you can modify and move any vector objects into any shapes and forms you want to make

With this tool, we can change the paths of vector lines. 

With this tool selected, click on an object and you will notice now that the view is very different.

Each one of those square dots is an anchor point.

With the Direct Selection tool you can grab anchor points.

Anchor points represent any place where the path of the line changes. 

All lines are straight, until they meet an anchor point! Those are the blue squares.

If you grab (click on) a point, or hold SHIFT and click multiple points, those points become selected. 

You can change your logo until you are happy with the design. 

This is a vector graphic, meaning it is infinitely scalable! 
We are now going to optimize this for the laser cutter. 

Remember: The vinyl cutter, the Carvey CNC and the Vinyl Printer/Cutter all rely on following vector lines. If you learn these basics, it will apply to
the other machines!

The basic idea is simple. All machines need to follow cut paths and different software will create these paths but for the most part, you are designing with Outlines in mind. 

The Outline becomes the cutting path and the machine can perform the process based on this information. 

While the artwork is selected, open your menu option Window, and pick Pathfinder. 

Now, we are going to create a cut path!

The laser cutter can perform two processes:

• engraving
• cutting

The laser cutter knows how to do this because we will change our objects or graphics to contain information, or SVG line values that it recognizes.

Notice how this object is now connected, with no breaks in between the A and the B?

We can change the Stroke values of this object so the laser cutter will cut out around the letter, but leave all of the black area engraved only. 

Press Z to select the zoom tool (or the magnifying glass icon on the toolbar).

We will now zoom into the graphic you have created.

Click on the graphic to zoom in.

To zoom out, hold ALT and click

Now, double click on the Stroke.

This will open your Color Picker.

We need to always set the value to RGB RED, or (255,0,0) in our RGB color Values.

Enter into your R: 255.

We have created RGB RED.

If you add any values into the G: section or the B: section, the file will no longer be able to be recognized by the laser cutter.

The laser cutter will treat it like those lines do not exist.

The Stroke around our object is now RGB RED.

But this isn’t enough information for the laser cutter. 

We also need to set the Stroke weight, or line thickness to 0.002 pt. 

Notice that your line thickness has changed and it is barely visible.

We can now submit our laser cutting file to the Maker Studio!