OOPS!!! What Did I Do?
Today’s topic covers the little things you can inadvertently click in KNK Studio or Design Master that will cause something “bad” to happen. Now by “bad”, I don’t mean anything catastrophic! lol I’m referring to those moments when something just doesn’t look right and you don’t know now to fix it! The following are some of the ones reported by users and hopefully, by reading and understanding each one, you won’t have to worry about them happening to you. 🙂
Problem: When I cut my image, the machine also tries to cut out my cardstock! Or, my KNK goes out of range when I’m just trying to cut a small image.
Cause: More than likely, you have inadvertently created a Sign Blank object, which is nothing more than a rectangle the exact same size as your Sign Blank. Because users often go to Layout>Blank Size, they might mistakenly click on the option right below that menu choice, which is Layout>Sign Blank Object.
Solution: To remove the Sign Blank object, simply click on the border of your Sign Blank and you will see the 9 little boxes appear. Click on the delete key to remove it.
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Problem: Whenever I turn on Fill, my entire Sign Blank turns black (or some other color).
Cause: Again, you may have a Sign Blank object as stated above. So check that first. But the other possibility is that you have changed the color of your Sign Blank. I’m not sure if there’s more than one way to make this happen. I was the first person to report this to Accugraphic and Chad had to ask CADLink how to fix it.
Solution: Turns out, all you need to do is drag the color White from the Shop Palette and drop it onto your Sign Blank. Thus, that’s probably how I did it in the first place, but because I keep Fill turned off most of the time, I didn’t realize I had done it. Anyhow, this comes up every few weeks, so either the users are doing this same thing or there’s some other way to make it happen that we’ve not yet discovered.
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Problem: When I type text, I can’t see anything being typed and after finishing, I have an unusual little icon with a little arrow or something.
Cause: You have typed in a TINY size of text. This first came up about a month after KNK Studio was first released and it took me another month to figure out what the user had done wrong! Finally a screen shot identified the size of the text in the text window as being 0.001.”
Solution: In the Text Smart Bar, increase the size of the text back to a reasonable size… e.g. 1.00″.
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Problem: I’m trying to edit my image but the program won’t let me drag the nodes.
Cause: You probably have Snap to Grid turned on, which applies in all modes, including node editing.
Solution: Outdent the Snap To Grid icon or go to Options>Grid>Snap to Grid and uncheck.
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Problem: When I cut, my image is cutting the wrong direction.
Cause: I’m probably to blame for this one more than anyone since I created the video on “Understanding the Sign Blank” which was before Design Master or KNK Studio GE were released. And images cut differently with a KNK than with one of the 8″ Graphtec Cutters. Note that with a Klic-N-Kut, you control Portrait vs Landscape cutting by checking or unchecking Axis Swap. With Design Master, you leave Axis Swap unchecked and cut Landscape by rotating the image -90 degrees in the Cut Preview window. With KNK Studio GE, you leave Axis Swap unchecked but change the Orientation to Landscape in the Layout>Blank Size window, unless you own a blue Wishblade (in which case, you do it the same way as with Design Master). Whew.
Solution: Check your Axis Swap setting under Cut>Plotting Defaults or check your Landscape vs Portait setting under Layout>Blank Size and modify the settings based on which cutter and which software you’re using.
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Problem: When I cut my image, the cutter returns to the start and cuts the last part on top of the first part.
Cause: The cutter is basically doing something called tiling, in which it thinks it has run out of room to complete the cut.
Solution: Go to Cut>Plotting Defaults, click on Setup and make the Machine Limits larger. Don’t hesitate to increase those values to something outside the range of what you think you’ll ever cut.
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Problem: I can no longer see the colors I’ve used on my Job Palette. I just see a yellow triangle with an exclaimation point.
Cause: You have inadvertently switched to Foil View. (This one just came up yesterday… thanks, Lynn for troubleshooting your OWN issue! 🙂
Solution: Click on the little 3 dot button on the Job Palette and then click on Color View.
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Problem: I can’t seem to create guidelines.
Cause: You have inadvertently turned off the view guidelines option.
Solution: Use Alt-W or go to Options>Guides>Use Guides.
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Problem: I lost one of my default trace settings.
Cause: If you click on Delete when you are in the Trace Settings window, the currently-selected default will be gone.
Solution: You simply need to find out the values for that setting and then re-enter them and type in a new name and save. I created a quickie video to show this, and typed up the default settings. See post on July 30, 2008.
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I will plan to add more to this list as I think of them and will announce in a new post. Hope you find this helpful and if you have some suggestions, let me know!
