How to Use Inkscape for Laser Cutting

Once you open Inkscape, go to File > New or press Control + N on Windows or Command + N on Mac. You will need the canvas to be the correct size for your artwork. 

Once you have a canvas, you need to change the dimensions by going to File > Document Properties or pressing Shift + Control + D on Windows or Shift + Command + D on Mac.

Once you are in the Document Properties panel, you can set the Width and Height values and the units, such as Inches or Millimeters. You should also change the Display units to match your document units to avoid confusion. You must ensure the document is the exact size needed for the laser cutting. 

If you are sending the design to a professional and aren’t sure of the correct size, phone and find out to avoid delays later on. 

Once you have set the dimensions, click on the X icon to close the panel and start designing.

You can now start designing your artwork. You can add any shapes to the canvas by selecting one of the shape tools from the toolbar and then clicking and dragging to create the shape on the canvas.

You can also select the Create and edit text tool to add some text if you’d like for the laser cutting. Once you click and drag to add the text box, you can type some text in and then customize the text using the settings in the top bar.

A necessary step when creating artwork for laser cutting is to ensure that the lines are at the correct thickness. The line thickness will depend on your requirements, and if you are unsure, you will need to contact the laser cutters to find out what line weight you should use for your design.

Go to Object > Fill and Stroke or use the shortcut Shift + Control + F on Windows or Shift + Command + F on Mac to adjust the line thickness.

When the panel opens on the right-hand side, open the Stroke Style tab, and adjust the line thickness as needed.

Once you have created your artwork and set the line thickness to the correct weight, you must convert all the objects to paths. If you use a raster image as the base, you must convert the image to a bitmap.

However, if you create the artwork with shapes and text, you can convert the objects to paths by selecting them all and then going to Path > Object to Path or using the shortcut Shift + Control + C on Windows or Shift + Command + C on Mac

Once you have converted the objects, you can check that they are correctly converted by checking the nodes. To do this, select the Edit paths by nodes tool from the toolbar or press N.

Then, you can select the objects on the canvas, and if there are gray blocks around the object, they have been converted to paths.

You can skip to the exporting steps if you are sending the file to a professional laser cutter or follow these steps if you need to add parameters for your own laser cutter. To access the plugin, ensure you have followed the downloading and installing steps in the first section.

Then, go to Extensions > Generate Laser Gcode > J Tech Photonics Laser Tool.

Once you follow the menu path, the plugin window will pop up. You can then adjust all the settings as needed. Click Apply when you are done to generate the Gcode.

Once you have completed the artwork and applied the laser tool settings, you can export the file. To do this, go to File > Export or use the shortcut Shift + Control + E on Windows or Shift + Command + E on Mac.

When the Export panel opens on the right, use the drop-down menu at the bottom to select Plain SVG as the file format. You can set the save location on the left and then click Export.