MAKE THE CUT
Version tested: 4.6.2 (from February 2015)
Operating system tested: PC
Tested: 13 December 2024 / Missy Meyer
Cost: Free demo version; paid version no longer available
Where to get it: https://make-the-cut.software.informer.com/
Font file types to use: TTF/OTF double stroke; OPF single stroke
Image file types to use: SVG
Special Notes about Make the Cut
The most recent version of MTC that I can find is from February of 2015; its original website is now dead. If you purchased a license before that time, you should have access to the full version. If not, the demo version is all you can get.
When you start up the program, it will ask if you want to continue with the demo version, or register the license number you’ve purchased. But unfortunately, if you click on that “register” option to try and buy a license, it just tries to take you to the dead website.
If you choose to continue with the demo version, it’ll give you another pop-up about registering. Once again, clicking on that “yes” button will just take you to a dead page that never loads.
So, bottom line: this guide is for people who have a fully licensed and functioning version of MTC, and have held on to their license number for (checks watch) over 9 years! Those who download the demo version now will most likely not be able to use the full functionality of the program, and will end up with a diagonal line across their designs.
How to See & Use the Fonts (TTF/OTF Double Stroke)
First, make sure that the font is installed on your computer or device. Check the “Install fonts on [operating system]” software guides for more information.
After opening up a new project, click on the Text and Fonts tab on the right side, and select your double stroke font from the drop-down list. In the case of this example, the double stroke font is Spicy Sketcher 2.
Supposedly, once your font is selected, you can click on the Virtual Mat and start typing. However, I’m not able to get that to work. One alternate option is to use the character grid that appears when you select your font; just double-click on each letter to insert them in the mat. They’ll appear butted right up next to each other using this technique, without the spacing that would normally appear when typing. (Keep reading for the other way to place text on your mat.)
Each character is inserted as its own separate object, making it easy to resize, rotate, and move the letters to create your design.
How to See & Use the Fonts (OPF Single Stroke)
Make the Cut is one of the few programs that can use an OPF font file.
Open up a new project, then click on the Text and Fonts tab on the right side. Below the drop-down list where you can choose a font, you’ll see two wee buttons on the right side. Click on the left one, which will allow you to load in a font file. If you hover over that button, it will say “Add font from TTF file,” but it will also let you load in an OPF file.
Here you’ll get an explorer window. Navigate to where the OPF file lives, and single-click on it to select it (red arrow). If you’d like to install this font permanently, check the “Install permanently inside Make The Cut” box (blue arrow). Then click on the Open button (green arrow) to proceed.
You’ll get a confirmation pop-up that the font has been added.
Now you can either use the method shown above, double-clicking on each character to insert them on your mat, or you can add words and sentences! With the OPF font selected, click on the right of those two wee icons below the drop-down list of fonts. This will allow you to add a group of characters.
Note: This can also be used for the double stroke TTF or OTF font!
You’ll get a pop-up box that lets you add a “text group”. You can type in your text (blue arrow), including separate lines if you hit the Enter key. There’s a drop-down menu along the top where you can choose how the program treats the characters; I recommend choosing “Split By Glyphs” here. That way, each letter will be inserted onto the Virtual Mat as a separate object, so you can edit, rotate, or resize each one individually.
Once your text is ready to go, click the “Accept” button at the bottom of this pop-up.
Since each glyph is split out as a separate object, you can resize, edit, rotate, or otherwise arrange the letters.
How to Access Alternates, Ligatures, and Extended Character Sets
You’d think that the grid of characters in Make the Cut would be the way to add in all of the extras. But …
That isn’t the case, because the MTC grid stops at a certain point for all fonts, and won’t show any characters beyond that point. Here you can see in MTC, I’ve scrolled all the way to the bottom of that character grid, and it ends with a lowercase n with a carat on top. I’ve also called up the character list in MainType, and highlighted where that carat-n appears. There are just about 390 characters after that one, including all of the fun alternates and ligatures in the Private Use Area.
This isn’t just the case with the Spicy Sketcher font we’re using as an example; the character grid built into MTC stops at roughly the same place in the character list with every font I tried, whether they were OPF, TTF, OTF, line fonts, or regular outline fonts.
So the solution is to copy and paste from an alternate source (Windows Character Map, MainType, Font Book on a Mac, the list goes on) into the Add Text Group panel.
Here you can see that I’ve copied in alternate versions of the letters SAMPLE. They show up really weird in the Add Text Group panel; every letter is an odd piece of punctuation or shape. But below the Add Text Group panel, you can see that the alternate letters are showing up on the mat as they should. Again, I’ve selected “Split By Glyphs” so that every character is placed on the mat as a separate item.
From here, once again, you can arrange, edit, rotate, and otherwise move the letters into place in your design.
How to Use SVG or Other Alphabet Sets
If a font comes with the full character set in an SVG file, you may find it easier to work with.
There are a couple of ways to open up that SVG file. You can either take the blue arrow route, by going to Edit > Import > SVG/SVGZ File from the top menu; or you can go the red arrow route, by clicking on the “Import SVG/Z” button in that top center section. (Or you can use the Ctrl+Shift+G shortcut!)
This will give you an explorer window; navigate to where the SVG file lives and click on it to select it. Then click the Open button at the bottom of that window.
The full character set of the font will be placed on your mat. You can now choose the letters you’d like to use, and move them over to the side.
You can even move your selected letters off the mat entirely, if that makes things easier. Once you have your characters all selected and moved over, drag a selection box around the rest of the letters and delete them off the mat.
As usual, now you can arrange the characters in any way you like to create your design!
If this program has been updated since this test and this guide no longer works, please drop me a line at the contact form so I can update this page!