This is lesson 6 in our series about getting to know the Silhouette Studio software. You can start with lesson 1 here. Today, we’ll be talking about drop down menus.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click the link and purchase something, I may receive a small commission. You pay the same price. This helps me to be able to keep my business going and provide more tutorials.
You’ll notice some words in the upper left corner of the software, directly above the upper left icon bar. These help you access drop down menus. Clicking on the word will open a menu below the word and in the menu you can choose various actions. It’s like a menu in a restaurant – you are given a list of options to choose from. Sometimes the option you choose has further options. For example, if you look at a menu in a restaurant you may choose a steak. You then choose if you want it rare, medium or well done.
Some of the actions you can perform in the drop down menus will be familiar from the lesson on icons. Many times (but not always) you can accomplish a task multiple ways in Silhouette Studio.
General Things to Know about drop down menus
–A grayed out option indicates you can’t currently choose that action. For example, you can’t try to group if you only have one image selected. This is just like icons.
–If the feature has … at the end of the words, then that typically means clicking the word doesn’t actually perform an action but instead opens a panel or folder for that feature. This isn’t always the case, but usually.
–If the command has a keyboard shortcut, then the menu shows it (usually — some are MIA, some are downright wrong).
–An arrow on the end of the line of the option means there is a secondary menu that opens with further options.
–As with the icons, some are features of upper levels of the software or specific machines. Throughout the post are the following indications of this–
* Designer Edition and above
There are no drop down menu items specific to Design Plus Edition
^ Business Edition
# Curio only
◊ Curio and Cameo 3 only
–If you do not have those upper software levels or that machine, then you may not see some of the options in the menus.
Let’s go through each drop down menu step by step. Don’t get bogged down in the details — just skim if you need to. The goal is to familiarize you with the terms and features. The more times you read about them, the more you remember that the features are there and understand what the terms mean. Click through the menus in your software so you get used to them and then refer back to this page as needed.
Silhouette Studio
NOTE: You’ll only see this menu if you are using a Mac computer.
About Silhouette Studio — to find your current software version number.
Preferences — to set your software preferences. To see the preference settings I suggest for beginners, see Lesson 1.
Services — gives you the ability to use a feature from another program without having to leave Silhouette Studio. For example, you may be able to highlight text you have typed and create an email with it. I’m not a Mac user so I don’t have a ton of info for you here.
Hide Silhouette Studio — minimizes the program down onto the menu bar.
Hide Others — minimizes all open programs down onto the menu bar.
Show All — maximizes all the screens up and open on the desktop behind the Silhouette screen.
Quit Silhouette Studio — to close out the program when you are done using it.
File
This menu has options for opening, closing and saving files and the software, as well as commands for printing and some library functions.
New — to start a new file on your drawing area.
New Project Wizard — to start a new file using a template for common types of projects.
Open — to open a file that you previously created and saved to your computer’s hard drive. If you want to open a file that you saved to your library, then you start in the library instead of in the drop down menu. Don’t confuse the software’s library…
…with the Libraries folder area you may see in the dialog box for your computer.
Open Recent — to open a secondary menu with a list of files that you were working on most recently. In some versions of the software this doesn’t work correctly.
Open Recovered — Your Silhouette Studio software automatically saves your files as you are working. If your software closes unexpectedly, then this is a lifesaver. The next time you open Silhouette Studio a list of recovered documents will show on the right side of the software. You can then open each file and decide to save or discard it. The files will stay in the list until you discard them. I highly recommend keeping this area cleaned up as files that linger in here take up memory as the software is running and can slow it way down. This menu option opens the Recovered Documents panel on the right if you need it at a time other than when you first open the software.
Merge — This is a helpful feature not many people know about. When you open something you have saved to the hard drive (such as an image you are going to trace or a Silhouette file), it opens in its own tab (page) on the drawing area. If you want instead to add it to what is already on the drawing area, then you can choose File>Merge.
Save — to save the file you are currently working on.
If the file is a new one, a dialog box will open so that you can give it a name and tell the software in which folder to save it. The default location for saving can be either your computer hard drive or the software library. To choose which one, go into your preferences…
…in the drop down menu Silhouette Studio>Preferences menu (Mac) or Edit>Preferences menu (Windows)…
OR
…by clicking the gear icon in the upper or lower right corner of the software…
OR
…using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+k (Windows) or CMD+k (Mac)…
…and go to the General section (the first option). Look for the sub-section Default Save Location and check the box by either Hard Disk or Library. It is automatically the hard drive if you don’t set this in your Preferences.
If the file is one you have previously saved to the hard drive, the file and any changes you made are saved in the same location on your computer.
If the file is one you have previously saved to your library, the file and any changes you made are saved in the same area of your library.
What if you aren’t sure where you want to save it? This isn’t a big deal at this point so don’t worry about it. I’ll show you the pros and cons of each as we go through the lessons.
Save As — to save the file you are working on to a different location or with a different name.
>Save to Hard Drive is for saving a file to your hard drive that you may have previously saved in your software’s library. This is what you choose if you want to save to a USB stick also — to transfer it to another computer or, with a Cameo 2 or 3, cut on the machine without being hooked into your computer with the USB cord. Also use this if you want to save your file with a new name or to a different area of your hard drive.
>Save to Library is the opposite. This is for saving to your software’s library a file you had previously saved on your computer’s hard drive. You can also use this if you want to save it under another name.
Save Selection allows you to save only a portion of what is on the drawing area. Select any pieces you want to save and then choose…
>Save to Hard Drive
OR
>Save to Library
… and continue saving as normal.
Library — Read carefully in this area of the menu because the terminology is all so similar.
>Library — opens your software library of images.
>Import Library — This is for when you saved the software’s library onto an external hard drive to transfer it to a different computer. If you are using a Cloud version of the software (3.7.206 and above), the cloud does this for you. It saves the data of designs purchased from the Silhouette Design Store or those you created yourself and saved to the Cloud area of the library and syncs it for you across multiple devices. If the first computer did NOT have a Cloud version so you exported the library, this is how you bring it in to the second computer. When the cloud was first implemented, some users with large libraries needed this but it appears to be unnecessary now. Clear as mud? Don’t worry — we’ll investigate the Cloud in more detail later. Just know that you probably don’t need this.
>Import to Library — If you purchase or download designs from a source other than the Silhouette Design Store and want to save them in your software’s library, this is what you use. You don’t have to save them in the library — you can just save them to the hard drive. But if you like to see all your designs in one area, this is helpful. You can also use it to save raster images that can then be used as a fill pattern, even if you don’t have Designer Edition. For more on how to do that, see here.
Update Library — If you have missing folders in your Library, you can click this to try to update it. This is only for users who have gone from a non-Cloud to a Cloud version. In other words, you don’t usually need it.
Scan — If you have a scanner with Twain support, your software can communicate directly with the scanner. What that means is you can run your scanner from within the Silhouette program instead of through the scanner software. This is can be used for PixScan, Tracing, Print and Cut, etc.
Print — to print the file on your home printer. NOTE: in order for anything to print, there must be print information in the file. That means you need to either fill the shapes with color or pattern, or raise the line thickness higher than the default of 0.0. Yes, I’ll teach you all about this as we go through the lessons.
Print Page Setup — to choose the printer settings for printing out a project. I recommend you ALWAYS walk through this when doing a Print and Cut project.
Send to Silhouette — this is a holdover from a previous version of the software and doesn’t do anything in version 4.
Close Tab — to close current file that is showing on the drawing area. If you have made any changes to the file and not saved it, you will be prompted to do so.
Quit — to shut down the software. The software again prompts you to save any changes so you don’t lose your work.
Edit
This drop down menu has options for common edits that you may recognize from other software programs, as well as those for selection of images and editing software preferences.
Undo… — goes backward one step to undo any action. You can press this an infinite number of times until the file is closed.
Redo… — to reinstate an action you used the Undo button on. Again, you can use this as many times as you want until the file is closed. If it’s grayed out, there is not currently an action to redo.
Cut — to remove the selected image. When you use this option, the image can then be pasted to another location within the software.
Copy — to copy the selected image.
Paste— to paste onto the drawing area an image that had previously been copied, either within the software or from the computer’s clipboard.
Paste in Front — This is a nifty feature many folks aren’t aware of. When you copy an image and then choose a regular Paste, the copied image is automatically pasted in front (on top) of any designs already on the drawing area. So what’s the purpose of Paste in Front? Normally, the pasted image is placed slightly down and to the right of the original. This happens if you are on the same tab (file/drawing area/page) or a different tab in Silhouette Studio. With Paste in Front, the duplicate is placed in the exact same location. This is great if you want to have several copies of an image lined up on top of one another on the drawing area (useful for some Modify options), or if you want an image you copy from one page to be in the same location when pasting it onto a different page.
Delete — removes the selected image permanently. With Cut, the image can be pasted back onto the page or onto a new page. With Delete, it cannot.
Duplicate — makes a copy of the selected image. The copies are placed in line with the image but slightly to the right.
Select All — to select all images on the drawing area.
Deselect All — to unselect all images on the drawing area.
Select by Color — to select images based on line or fill color.
Preferences — to select various choices in the software such as language, unit of measurement, display, etc. To see which Preferences settings I suggest for beginners, see here.
View
This menu has options for how much of the drawing area you see, how the drawing area looks and what area of the software you are seeing. Many of the options in this menu will have the check mark beside them indicating they are enabled.
Zoom — to move the view of your drawing area closer in or further out by set percentages or to return it to showing the entire page size (Fit to Window).
Rotate Page — to turn the mat on the drawing area in 90° increments.
Show Rulers* — to turn the rulers on or off.
Show Crosshairs* — to turn crosshairs on or off.
Grid Options — to open the Grid Settings panel.
Show Grid — to turn the grid on or off. This is one example where the keyboard shortcut is not shown (just “g”).
Snap to Grid — to turn on or off the feature that moves a shape in set increments relative to the grid.
Show Guides* — to turn on or off the ability to pull a guideline out from the rulers, or to hide/bring back into view all guidelines already present.
Snap to Guides* — to turn on or off the feature that moves a shape in set increments relative to guidelines.
Show Print Border — to turn the print border on or off.
Show Cut Border — to turn the cut border on or off.
Registration Marks — to open a panel to turn on and set up the marks used for Print and Cut projects. You do NOT use these on a regular cut or sketch.
Show Design Page Settings — to open the Page Setup panel.
Design Layout^ — In any level of the software, you can create project that is larger than your material or mat size. Design Layout View is the standard view which shows the entire project. If you have Business Edition, you can choose between Design and Media Layout views.
Media Layout^ — When you select this view, the software splits the screen with the normal Design View on the left and the Media Layout View on the right. You can change the layout on the defined material size without changing the original design.
Business Mode On/Off^ — This toggles between Design Layout and Media Layout. It doesn’t do anything other than switch to whichever one you aren’t in.
Show Design Page — to view the area where you design your project.
Show Store — takes you directly to viewing the design store to shop for images or access your SDS account.
Show Library — to view your library of purchased images or those you have saved in the library.
Show Send Page — to view the Send area to select which pieces you are going to cut, choose your material and cut settings, perform a test cut, choose other advanced options and send the job to the Silhouette.
Panels
This menu has a list to open the various panels in the software. These are primarily the same ones you would open with the icons that go down the right side of the software.
Page Setup — to set up your page size; select your mat; customize how the drawing area looks with the grid, rotation, borders, transparency, rulers*, crosshairs*, print border and cut border; and set up registration marks for a Print and Cut project.
PixScan — to open a PixScan image, scan from within the software, or perform PixScan calibration.
Fill Color — actually opens the entire fill panel, so for gradient and patterns as well.
Line Color — opens the panel called Line Style, which has the tabs for both style and color.
Select by Color — to select images on the drawing area based on their line or fill color. The icon for this is in the upper left icon bar and not along the right side.
Trace — to create cut lines based on an imported photo or clip art image.
Image Effects — to edit the colors and lighting of a fill pattern or photo.
Text Style — to choose attributes for your text.
Spelling — Spellcheck is a tab in the Text Style panel. This menu choice opens a panel with spell options only.
Transform — for manipulating the alignment, size, rotation, location and tilt of images.
Modify — to combine images by welding, create a new shape based on overlapping areas of two or more shapes, separate a thick line from a shape, or make or release compound paths.
Replicate — to make copies or mirrored copies of images.
Offset — to create an identical shape slightly inside or outside the selected shape(s) like a mat.
Nest* — to fit the shapes within the smallest area possible on your page in order to minimize waste.
Stipple◊ — to turn a regular image into an image made of small dots to draw with a pen. Although a Curio or Cameo 3 is required to stipple, you can (at this time) use fills created in this panel on other machines for creating lines to print, cut or sketch.
Emboss# — to choose settings for creating textured lines with the embossing tool. Although a Curio is required to emboss, you can (at this time) use the fills created in this panel on other machines for creating lines to print, cut or sketch.
Sketch* — to turn shapes into a sketch images with customizable line and fill styles.
Rhinestones* — to turn a shape into a rhinestone image(s).
Layers* — to create several sheets/mats that can be kept within the same file/project.
Media Layout Setup^ — to set material page settings (which can be different from the desing page settings), create matrix copies, perform advanced nesting and tiling.
Warp — to twist the shape in a variety of directions.
Popup — to add pop-up elements to a project.
Object
This drop down menu has options for image manipulation.
Mirror — to flip or make a mirrored copy of the selected image. Be careful here because the terms can be confusing.
>Flip Horizontally — swivels the image along the vertical axis, making it a mirror image. In this picture, the left is the original image and the right is what it looks like after I flipped horizontally.
>Flip Vertically — mirrors the image and also flips it upside down.
Arrange — to move images up or down (above or below) in the order. For things like Print and Cut and the Modify options, order is very important.
>Bring to Front – to pull the selected image to the top (front) of all images on the page regardless of which layer* it is in.
>Send to Back — to lower the selected shape down to the bottom of all shapes on the page regardless of layer*.
>Bring Forward — to pull the selected image up just above the one above it.
>Send Backward — to lower the selected image just below the one below it.
>Bring to Front of Layer* — to bring the selected image to the front of the layer it is in (if you are using layers).
>Send to Back of Layer* — to send an image down to the back of the order of the selected layer (if you are using layers).
Align — to place a single shape on the exact top, bottom, left, right or center of the page, or to align several shapes to one another using the same options or space them out evenly.
>Align Center-Middle — If a single image is selected, then the software places it in the exact middle of the page based on both the horizontal and vertical axes. With multiple images selected, it centers the images on one another rather than on the page. In the current release (4.0.837), it seems to always be grayed out.
>Align Left, Center, Right, Top, Middle, Bottom — If only 1 image is selected, the image is aligned fully to the area of the page you choose. With multiple images selected, this lines up the images with one another based on which option you choose.
>Space Horizontally — to evenly distribute 3 or more selected images left to right. It places an even amount of space between the bounding boxes of each image.
>Space Vertically — to evenly distribute 3 or more selected images top to bottom.
>Center to Page — If a single image is selected, then this does the same as Align Center-Middle. With multiple images selected, it’s different. Instead of centering the images on top of one another, it treats them as a group and centers the group on the page. In the current release (4.0.837), it seems to always be grayed out.
Rotate — to move the selected image by a specific amount or to a specific location.
>By 45º or 90º clockwise or counter clockwise or by 180º.
>To 0, 90º, 180º or 270º.
Replicate — to make duplicates of images.
>Duplicate Left, Right, Above, Below — to make an exact copy in line with the selected image.
>Mirror Left, Right, Above, Below — to make a mirrored copy in line with the selected image. The primary difference between this mirroring and the type described above is that this one makes reflected copies instead of mirroring the original.
>Rotate One, Two, Three, Five Copies — to make 1 or more copies of an image centered on the image but rotated. For example, if you rotate 1 copy, then the software places the copy right on top of the original but rotates it 90º.
>Row of Three, Four — makes 2 (or 3) copies directly to the right of the original so that you now have a row of 3 (or 4) identical shapes all aligned.
>Column of Three, Four — makes 2(or 3) copies direcly below the original so that you now have a column of 3 (or 4) identical shapes all aligned.
>Fill page — to make as many identical images as will fit on the defined page size. The software places the images in rows and columns with equal spacing. The original moves to a spot in the pattern.
Modify — to make a new shape based on altering a set of selected shapes.
>Weld — to join all the selected shapes into a single shape, erasing the cut lines at the areas where the shapes overlap.
>Intersect — to retain only the area that is shared by ALL the shapes.
>Subtract — to use a shape higher in the order to cut a hole in a lower shape. Each shape cuts downward through all shapes below it and only the uncovered portion of the lowest shape remains.
>Crop — to retain any area that is shared by at least 2 of the selected shapes.
>Subtract All — to perform the same action as with subtract, except that once it’s done you are left with any uncovered portions of all shapes (instead of just the lowest shape).
>Divide — to create separate shapes wherever the lines of images (8 maximum) lay across other images.
>Detach Lines — to separate a line from a shape. This is only possible with filled cut shapes.
Convert to Path — to turn text, arcs and regular polygon shapes into standard images.
Make Compound Path — to combine a set of shapes into a single compound path. This differs from a grouping in that the shapes are all now a single piece in the same level (in front to back order).
Release Compound Path — to break apart a compound path into separate pieces.
Help
This menu has options for getting information about the software, directly accessing the Silhouette America website and activating/de-activating upper levels of the software with license key numbers.
User’s Manual — to open the PDF file of the instruction manual.
Introduction – to see what features are in version 4 that were not in previous versions.
Tutorials — to see a list of tutorials that walk you through various features of the software.
Software License Agreement — to open the dialog box which shows the terms of use of the Silhouette Studio software. The important provisions to note here are:
When you purchase a design from the Silhouette Design Store, you alone have a license to use it so you may not share those designs or any files in which you use those designs.
Designs you purchase in the Silhouette Design Store are automatically in your Cloud account. This is the way you keep your library the same on different computers. You can also save designs you personally create in the Cloud, but this is completely optional. Silhouette America does not have access to any images you save only in the Local User (non-Cloud) area of the library or on your hard drive. You don’t have to have internet access to use your library images — only to download them right after purchasing them, to recover the library on a new computer, or to sync the libraries between multiple devices.
With the Cloud, you may sync your library on up to 5 devices at the same time.
Any purchased licenses (Designer, Designer Plus or Business Edition, Silhouette Connect, ModelMaker) can be use on up to 3 computers at the same time.
You may not sell files created in Silhouette Studio. (You may sell items made with your Silhouette, as long as it is all your original design work or you purchase a commercial license for any designs you buy from the Silhouette Design Store.)
By using the software, you agree to all of these provisions.
Check for Updates — to see if there are any updates to the software. This RARELY works, so don’t trust it. Always compare your full version number with the one on the Silhouette America website.
SilhouetteAmerica.com — to open the Silhouette website on your internet browser to purchase physical products, search the FAQ database, find links to the blog, etc. This is different from the Silhouette Design Store.
Upgrade Silhouette Studio — to input a license key code for Designer, Designer Plus or Business Edition.
De-Activate License Key — to remove the Designer, Designer Plus or Business Edition upgrade. If you are getting rid of a computer, then you want to do this so that you still have 3 installs of the code.
About Silhouette Studio — to view your full version number and the user name under which any upgrade is licensed.
That’s all!
But it’s certainly enough, isn’t it? Don’t worry if all the new terms are swirling around in your head. We will take the time to learn about each and every one.
When you’re ready, you can go on to Lesson 7 where I’ll show you how to use the right click menus.
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