Graphtec Registration Marks and Cut File Setup

Graphtec cutters read printed registration marks to line the blade up with your artwork, so print-and-cut jobs come off the machine on the line rather than a few millimetres out. Here is how the marks and the sensor work, and how to build a cut file that scans cleanly.

Graphtec cutters and the software that drives them

Graphtec makes a long line of vinyl and print-and-cut plotters, including the CE and FC series, and the company also engineered the cutting hardware behind the early Silhouette machines, so the workflow will feel familiar if you have used one of those. Two software routes drive a Graphtec cutter. Graphtec Studio is the free standalone design and cut application. Cutting Master is a plug-in that adds a cut and registration workflow directly inside Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW, which is handy when your artwork already lives in those programs. Either way, the machine expects a printed sheet with registration marks it can find before it starts cutting.

What ARMS does

ARMS stands for the Automatic Registration Mark Sensor. When you print a design and load the sheet back onto the cutter, the paper is almost never in the exact position it held on screen, and it may be slightly rotated or skewed. ARMS fixes that. The optical sensor drops down and reads each printed mark, works out the true position, rotation and any distance error of the sheet, and shifts every cut path to match. Without working marks the blade simply follows the on-screen coordinates and your cut lines drift away from the print.

How Graphtec registration marks are laid out

Graphtec marks are corner marks - short L-shaped or right-angle lines placed near the corners of the sheet rather than the filled squares some other systems use. The layout is configurable in Graphtec Studio and Cutting Master, and you choose how many the machine reads:

• 2-point. Two marks on a diagonal. The fastest option, correcting position and rotation but not distance error across the sheet.
• 3-point. Three marks in an L arrangement, adding correction for skew between two axes.
• 4-point. A mark near each corner, giving the most accurate alignment over a large print by correcting distance in both directions.

The mark length, line thickness and the gap between the marks and the artwork are all set in the software. Larger jobs and stretchy or thicker media benefit from more marks and slightly longer marks, because the sensor has more reference points to work from.

Keep the artwork clear of the marks

The sensor needs a clean, high-contrast area around each mark to lock onto it, so the marks must sit a set distance from the edge of the sheet and a set distance from your artwork. Two things trip people up here:

• Artwork too close to a mark. Pull designs in so no colour bleeds into the clear zone the sensor reads. Anything printed over or beside a mark can confuse the scan.
• Cut lines crossing a mark. If a cut path runs across a registration mark, the sensor can misread the position. Leave a clear margin between every cut line and every mark.

Follow the minimum distances shown in Graphtec Studio or Cutting Master. If the software warns that a mark sits too near the edge or the art, move the art or the page rather than ignoring it.

Print, then let ARMS scan

1. Set the page size to match the paper you will print on, and position the marks and artwork so nothing overlaps.
2. Print the page at 100 per cent scale - never "fit to page", which resizes the marks and the spacing the sensor expects.
3. Load the printed sheet into the cutter in the orientation shown on screen, squared up to the rollers.
4. Send the job. The cutter moves to the first mark and lets ARMS scan each one in turn before it makes a single cut. Watch that the sensor passes over and finds every mark.

When the sensor cannot find the marks

If ARMS fails to detect the marks, it is almost always one of these:

• Scaling. The page was printed at anything other than 100 per cent, so the marks are not where the machine expects.
• Contrast. Marks printed too light or too thin, or printed on coloured, dark or glossy stock, or strong room lighting causing glare on the sheet.
• Position. The sheet is loaded rotated or shifted, so the sensor starts hunting in the wrong place. Reload it squared up.
• Obstruction. Artwork or a cut line sits inside a mark's clear zone, or a mark is too small for the sensor to resolve. Increase the mark length and keep the surround clean.

The faster way: start with a ready-to-cut file

Placing corner marks by hand, keeping artwork clear of them, and drawing an accurate cut line around every shape is the slow part of print-then-cut. CutPath Pro does all of it for you: upload your PNG or JPG, it traces a clean cut line that hugs the art, and it adds correctly-sized corner registration marks with the artwork automatically kept clear of them. You export a print-ready file and place it straight into Graphtec Studio or Cutting Master to print and cut.

Related guides: How to add registration marks in Silhouette Studio, What is a cut contour line, The complete guide to print-then-cut files.