Sizing images and text in Design Space is one of the first tasks you’ll want to master. If you have worked with desktop publishing or graphic design software, you will find the sizing process to be similar.
Resizing Images
Images can be resized by dragging the arrow button or entering the desired measurement in the edit bar. In order to maintain the correct proportions, the padlock should be left in the locked position. When a new value is entered in either the width or height box, the other measurement will adjust automatically.
If the padlock is unlocked, the proportions won’t stay the same and the image will become distorted. In this example, I pulled the arrow button down and made the image longer while keeping the same width.
If the padlock is unlocked, and the height or width number is changed, the other number will not be changed. In this example, I unlocked the padlock and changed the width to seven inches. The height remained unchanged.
Most of the time, the padlock should stay locked to maintain the image proportions.
Note: With multi-layered images, it’s important to keep the image grouped when resizing so that the layers will go together correctly when cut.
When to unlock the padlock
There are times when unlocking the padlock is necessary. If you need to create a rectangle, insert a square from the shapes menu and unlock the padlock. It’s easy to enter the dimensions of the rectangle you need. If I’m wanting to make a card that is 5″x7″ when folded, I can enter “10” for the width and “7” for the height. After entering the dimensions, lock the padlock.
Resizing Text
Most text will need to be resized to fit a project, and some fonts take up more space than others.
Here, I’ve entered my text, but when I change the font, it is way too big, and the arrow button is off the canvas. I can move the slider to the right, but an easy way to deal with this is to reduce the width.
If I know this is going to go on a 5″x7″ card, I can enter “5” and adjust from there.
Once the text is down to a manageable size, it’s easy to fine tune it with the arrow button or the size boxes.
Here’s a brief video showing these techniques:
Thank you so much for your great information!!
My image doesn’t have the handles to resize. the box around the image is GREY. the only way i can resize is to change the numbers. is there a setting that is wrong?
The box in the current version of Design Space is gray. You can drag the arrow button in the lower right corner to resize.
You say its similiar to desktop editing programs yet its the sloppiest UI I have ever seen in editing software in my life. You cannot manually input the dimensions of your image instead your left with a drag method so if you have a positive and a negative image ie. for a stencil, and you need both to be adjusted width and height, you must unlock the padlock and left with doing each one manually, which is nearly impossible to move a mouse in such precise increments attempting to achieve this. So if you need that done you must refer back to REAL editig software get them the correct size and re-import them. Do they not have any graphic artists within the walls of Cricut product development ? Its ridiculous!
I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can manually input dimensions to the thousandths of an inch in the edit bar at the top of the screen. I do it all the time. Please go back and read this post again. I explain it in some detail. This article has more information about the edit bar: https://help.cricut.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009386754-Design-Space-Edit-Bar.
But, it does distort the image (I wanted a rectangle with rounded corners…the corners became distorted when I entered the values for W and H, which I did not want).
As I said in the post, anytime you unlock the aspect ratio and change the dimensions, the image will become distorted. If you want a rectangle with rounded corners, you’ll need to select a rectangle that has rounded corners from images, rather than from the shapes menu. Image #M28BCB13F would be a good one to use.