VersaWorks & Illustrator

[KC1990]

Running Versaworks 6.19.2

Small issue, but kind of annoying..

Say there's a print with a simple square cut.
Create graphics on an artboard (in illustrator) say 24" x 24"
CutContour spot as a fill 24" x 24" (I use a fill exactly copied underneath)
Everythings perfectly centered to the artboard.

VersaWorks only sees 3 sides to cut of the 4 on a square!?

To mitigate, I usually make the artboard larger and as a workaround, it does the trick.

Wondering if anyone else has ran into this issue, and possibly a workaround where I can just have proper sized artboards and still cut the file?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Boudica]

What kind of file are you saving and pulling into VW?

 

[mbzrg]

i don't use Versawork but do use illustrator and i'm thinking maybe your contour outline stroke is set to align center or align outside and that makes it go out of the artboard area when your exporting it to versa.. maybe if the stoke was set to inside that would solve your issue? also a stroke for a contour cut should be really thin like less then 0.25pt

 

[KC1990]

What kind of file are you saving and pulling into VW?

.EPS

 

[KC1990]

i don't use Versawork but do use illustrator and i'm thinking maybe your contour outline stroke is set to align center or align outside and that makes it go out of the artboard area when your exporting it to versa.. maybe if the stoke was set to inside that would solve your issue? also a stroke for a contour cut should be really thin like less then 0.25pt I don't use strokes, I copy the entire shape and use a contour as a fill. I've tried using strokes in the past and it's given me double cut lines everywhere.

For that I actually just copy the shape, paste in place and send to back as a CutContour spot color. (I use no stroke at all). Using the stroke cut contour method gave me the issue of having double cut lines everywhere, regardless of its positioning (inside, outside).

 

[MrDav3C]

Have you tried increasing the eps margin setting in versaworks? I think it needs to be about 0.35 from memory

 

[cornholio]

I set the EPS margin to 0.45mm.
It helps, but it's a good idea to use PDF instead of EPS.

 

[MrDav3C]

Totally agree with this, speaking from mainly a Corel Draw perspective, .pdf files tend to be more successful when it comes to gradients and transparencies than .eps files but I think this is less significant with illustrator etc.

 

[Joe House]

The borders of an .EPS file are defined by the artwork, so it's common for a part of the outside artwork to go MIA unless you have the EPS margin set too something greater than 0. I usually set it to .1 when setting up new customers.
The border of a pdf file is defined by the art board so it's not affected by this.
Double cuts on strokes is usually caused by your export settings converting the strokes to outlines when you save the EPS or PDF file.

 

[Kemik]

For .EPS you can also create a lager box around your artwork with a fill/stroke of none, for PDF make your artboard larger than the cut line.
I print a lot of small stickers and I normally offset my cut path by 0.625" and use that for spacing between cuts in VersaWorks or your RIP software.

 

[KC1990]

Thanks everyone! The EPS Margin setting in VW did the trick! Never had an issue with EPS and gradients/transparencies, however I will start using PDF files.

 

[MrDav3C]

From my experience .pdf files usually have a smaller file size than .eps files, sometimes this can cause VW to say an .eps file is corrupt upon importing