Why the free edition won't open SVG
Silhouette Studio comes in editions. The free basic edition opens its own .studio3 files and a few picture formats, but it can't open SVG: in current versions that needs Designer Edition or higher, which is a paid upgrade. That is awkward, because most cut files sold online, and everything Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity make, come as SVG.
Cutpeek takes the other route. It reads your SVG and writes the same shapes as a .studio3 file, the format the free edition opens anyway. Nothing about Silhouette Studio is changed or unlocked: you still have the free edition, and you open an ordinary file in it.
Beta: please check before you cut
The .studio3 files Cutpeek writes follow, field by field, the layout of real files saved by Silhouette Studio 5, and Cutpeek's own reader reads every one of them back to the same shapes. But no file written by Cutpeek has yet been opened in Silhouette Studio itself, so treat this as a beta:
- Open the downloaded file in Silhouette Studio (File, Open).
- Check one shape you know the size of, using the Scale or Transform panel.
- Check the line colours and, if you kept them, the layers.
- Cut a small test on scrap before cutting good material.
If the file doesn't open, or something looks wrong, Silhouette Studio is not damaged: just close it. We would like to hear what happened, with the SVG if you can share it.
How to convert an SVG
- Click Open an SVG or DXF at the top of this page, or drop the file on the mat.
- Check the size. Cutpeek reads the units the SVG declares (millimetres, inches, points or pixels). Pixels are read at 96 per inch, as Inkscape, Cricut Design Space and current Illustrator write them; choose 72 per inch for files from older Illustrator versions. You can also set the width you want in millimetres.
- Choose the page: the SVG's own canvas, trimmed to the design, Letter, A4 or a full 12 x 12 in mat.
- Click Download .studio3 and open the file in Silhouette Studio.
What comes across
- Shapes. Paths, rectangles (with rounded corners), circles, ellipses, lines, polylines and polygons, including shapes inside groups, moved, scaled, rotated or skewed. Curves stay curves.
- Holes. A path with several outlines, such as the letter O, stays one compound shape.
- Colours. The stroke colour becomes the Silhouette line colour, so cutting by line colour still works; where a shape only has a fill, the fill colour is used. Solid fills are kept unless you choose outlines only.
- Layers. By default everything goes on Silhouette's Default Layer, the safest choice while this is in beta. You can keep Inkscape or Illustrator layers as separate Silhouette layers instead; that option is experimental.
- DXF. Lines, arcs, circles, ellipses and polylines from DXF files come across too, with touching pieces joined into one outline.
Convert text to outlines first
Text in an SVG is a font instruction, not a shape, so Cutpeek leaves it out and tells you. Convert it to outlines before saving the SVG: in Inkscape choose Path, Object to Path; in Illustrator choose Type, Create Outlines; in Affinity Designer choose Layer, Convert to Curves. Pictures embedded in an SVG are left out too, because a cutter needs outlines.
Limits
A Silhouette mat is 12 inches (304.8 mm) wide, so a design wider than that has to be scaled down or turned before converting. Gradients and patterns are dropped, keeping the outline. Only use designs you have the right to use: a licence for a shop design may limit converting it.