One of the most asked about features in Design Space is Print then Cut. It can be a little intimidating at first, but once you see how it’s done, I think you’ll find that it’s a really handy tool which will save you lots of time.
The term Print then Cut means that images are printed on a printer, then the printed page is placed on a cutting mat and loaded into the Cricut machine.
If an image is a multi-layer image, it must be flattened first. Multi-layer images are designed to be cut as several cuts of different color materials that you then assemble into a single design. Flattening compresses the multiple layers of a multi-layer image into a single-layer printable image. Images need to have a solid background before flattening. Otherwise the inside of the image will cut rather than the outer edge.
If you don’t flatten your image first, you’ll get multiple pieces instead of the one piece that you want.
To flatten, either
- click the button labeled “Select All” in the top row Edit panel, or
- drag a bounding box around your image, or
- hold down the shift key while selecting the layers in the Layers panel
then click the “Flatten” icon:
Flattening result:
Flattening will also change the image from cut to print, and so there’s no need to change the layers to print before flattening. Also, images don’t need to be attached, grouped, or welded before flattening.
For more on Print then Cut, go to the Cricut help page or watch my video about this feature:
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