Cutting Plotter Software: Which one?

[Hip Pocket]

We purchased a sign shop back in July and have been using Flexi 12 subscription. Our sign shop is low-volume (our primary business is web design) and we have an old school Roland cutter for vinyl lettering. We outsource printing to Signs 365. Question: is Flexi 12 "overkill" for what we're doing?
What about Easy Cut Studio? It's a one-time $60 charge and may be adequate for what we're doing.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Andy D]

Probably, especially if you don't use it to design or rip prints. It does have some nice features in it that makes weeding much easier,
like having a cut line in between the letters so that you can weed the top or bottom of letters separately.
I have no idea about Easy Cut Studio, but I would find one that is made to work inside my design software,
such as Fine Cut, I think it macros inside Corel and AI.

Edited to add: make sure whatever you get supports your model of plotter.

 

[d fleming]

Stick with flexi, or, if they still offer one time purchase, look at basic version of signlab. Even if you are just doing simple cutting, the tools in either SL or flexi just make life a whole lot easier, faster, more profitable and take your design up a step..

 

[yor]

I am not using Flexi for my graphic design & print/cut job, I am able to do all of this by Illustrator and its Mimaki FineCut plug-in and I am happy with.

 

[jimdtg]

What is your design software currently?
You can use some plugins that supports your Roland cutter.

 

[Sandman]

I had a similar situation, an older Roland plotter run by an old Mac with Flexi (non subscription) on it. The Mac dies after 18 years of service. I do my designing on a Mac Pro that will not connect to the old Roland so I dug up an old XP machine and started looking for software to use as strictly cutting software. I ran across VinylMaster Cut. It currently runs $59.99 for the CD, no subscription. I was amazed. It wasn't just a bridge program, it will create your layouts as well. Has several vector drawing tools, many ways to cut, like by color or selection. It will import eps or Adobe Illustrator files which I mostly do because the Mac is where I have the largest variety of fonts. You'll be surprised at how much this little $60 program can do. I needed something that I could use that didn't have to call home since I was using XP and an XP browser will not connect to a secured site. Hope this helps.
https://www.uscutter.com/VinylMaster

 

[neato]

I second the vinylmaster program. I design in Corel, but Vinylmaster is a great way to get files from there to the cutter. It's the best deal I found in cutting software.

 

[Brad Petersen]

So I'm reading this forum for you guys that are using coral is there a way that it easily transfers to roland versa works? Currently I have a very old version of flexi on an Xp that I do the design work on and the transfer it to the windows 10 machine to print just looking to make my life easier and consolidate it to one computer. The version of flexi I have is not xp compatible so I need something new without the flexi price