LaserCutterIllustrator

Laser cut artwork from Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is not installed on any of the PCs at DoES Liverpool. But if you’ve created artwork in your own copy of Illustrator, and want to laser cut it, you can export the artwork from Illustrator into a DXF file, which you’ll be able to open directly in the LaserCut software running on the laser room PCs.

How to export your DXF from Illustrator

• Use File > Export… or File > Export > Export As… to export your artwork as an “AutoCAD Interchange File (dxf)”.
• Set the “AutoCAD Version” to “R14/LT98/LT97”.
• Make sure the “Artwork scale” is set to 1 Millimeters = 1 Unit(s).
• Make sure the “Outline Text” checkbox is checked.
• If you only want to export the objects you currently have selected, you can check the “Export Selected Art Only” checkbox. But otherwise, leave it unchecked.

Things to bear in mind

• Saving as a DXF will ignore everything apart from the Stroke applied to objects.
• Saving as a DXF will ignore the thickness of strokes, but the colour of the strokes will be retained and recongised by the LaserCut software running on the laser room PCs.
• There’s no concept of “Groups” or “Layers” in a DXF, so you should use Stroke colours group / differentiate your objects.
• Symbols will be ignored, so they need to be broken apart first. Right click and choose "Break link to symbol"

Want to use Inkscape instead?

See LaserCutterInkscape.