EveryCutFileWhat each Studio edition opens
Silhouette Go, the phone and tablet app, opens your own SVG files only with Designer Edition or higher, so it is no way round the Basic limit. A STUDIO3 file saved in an upgraded edition does open in Basic, minus any feature Basic doesn’t have.
| Edition | Opens | Saves or exports |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (free) | DXF, STUDIO and STUDIO3, GSD and GST, Silhouette Design Store files, TTF and OTF fonts; JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF and TIF to trace | STUDIO3 |
| Designer | All of the above, plus SVG and PDF | STUDIO3 |
| Designer Plus | All of the above, plus PES, DST, EXP, JEF and XXX embroidery files | STUDIO3 |
| Business | All of the above, plus AI, EPS and CDR | STUDIO3, SVG, PDF, PNG and JPG |
Open our designs in Basic Edition
- On the design page, download the DXF. For any other SVG, use our SVG to DXF tool: it runs in your browser and writes the drawing in millimeters.
- In Silhouette Studio, choose File > Open and pick the DXF.
- Select the whole design and read the width and height Studio shows beside it. A DXF holds no size information, so compare them with the size on the design page.
- If they differ, open the Transform panel on the right-hand toolbar, go to the Scale tab, lock the aspect ratio, type the width and click Apply.
Read the size in millimeters
Studio shows sizes in the unit chosen under Preferences > General > Unit of Measurement. Preferences is in the Edit menu on Windows and in the Silhouette Studio menu on a Mac.
A worked example: the arch label
Our arch pantry label is one piece, 60 × 62 mm, which is 60 ÷ 25.4 = 2.36 in by 62 ÷ 25.4 = 2.44 in. Its DXF holds one closed outline, with the curved top drawn as short straight segments, no more than 0.25 mm apart at the converter’s standard setting.
Open it and select it: the measurements shown beside the selection should read 60 mm wide and 62 mm tall. If they don’t, open the Scale tab, lock the ratio, type 60 in the width and click Apply; the height follows to 62 mm.
What the DXF keeps and what it drops
Studio reads only these DXF parts: arcs, circles, ellipses, lines, polylines, splines and text. Our converter writes each shape as a polyline, so curves arrive as short straight segments.
A DXF has no fills, so every shape arrives as an outline, without its color. Each color in the SVG goes into a DXF layer of its own, and a layered design opens as outlines stacked where its layers sit.
Silhouette’s advice for DXF files is to export without groups or compound paths and to rebuild them in Studio. A shape with a hole, such as a ring, arrives as two separate outlines; both cut, and you can make them a compound path again if you want to fill the shape.
Fold lines on our boxes and cards arrive as ordinary solid lines: set them as the score lines page describes before you cut.
With Designer Edition or higher
Designer Edition opens our SVG directly and places the shapes where the file places them. To have SVG files open centered in the cutting area instead, choose Edit > Preferences > Import and set the SVG Document Position to Centered.
From the maker’s documentation: Silhouette Studio editions, Silhouette: Studio file types by edition, Silhouette: Go mobile SVG requirements, Silhouette: importing and exporting troubleshooting, Silhouette: Basic Edition features, Silhouette: Studio 5 user manual.