TOP 5 Ways to Edit Slot Widths
In this quick tip, we learn my top 5 methods to edit the widths of slots. This works in Vectric Aspire, VCarve, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone in this lesson, we're going to look at my top five methods for scaling slot widths. And these methods can be used for a variety of techniques. But for this example, we're going to be looking at how to scale the width of a slot inside of a design. So you could see in this example, we have a one and a half inch by three quarter inch slot that we're going to scale up to one inch and we're going to keep it centered of our project.
Okay. And if you would like to follow along with this video, I will have this example file listed down below that you can download and follow along with the lesson. Okay so we're going to look at all five methods here. The very first method is going to be if you're using multiple slots and you want to scale them all the same time, as well as scale the entire project.
So just be aware of this method will scale the size of your project as well. Sometimes you want to do that if you want projects to fit into certain slots, but sometimes you won't want that. And in the next four methods, we'll show you without scaling the project. And for all five of these methods, I recommend turning on your geometry and smart snapping, that makes it much easier for the process here.
So for this method, in order to scale these slots up, we need to know the percentage that we need to scale the entire design. So to do that, what I like to do is go to the draw line tool and I draw a temporary line from this point to this point, and that gets our current slot height. And then if I right-click, that will stop that line and exit the tool.
And now with that line selected, we can go to our scaling tool, which the shortcut for this is the letter T. And you can see our current slot height is three quarters of an inch. So from our example here, we know that we want to go up to one inch in height, and we're going to do that for both of these slots.
Both of these slots are currently three quarters of an inch. So if we take this height and we're going to type in the number that we want it to be. So in this case, it'll be one inch and you're not going to apply that change right now. What we're after here is the percentage. So you can see by scaling it up to one inch, that's going to increase this line by 133.3333%.
So now we can take that percentage and use that to scale our entire design. And that will scale both slots at the same time. And like I said, it will also scale the design bigger as well. So just be aware of that. So now that we have that percentage, you could just memorize that or write it down. And then we're going to select our design without applying that change.
And now we're going to switch this to percentage and you want to make sure your X and Y is linked together. And we're going to anchor off the center that way the center point stays where it's at. And now we just type in that percentage that we just figured out. So it was 133.33333. And now if we click apply, you can see that increased the size of the entire design as well as both slot heights.
So now if it closes out and we go to our measuring tool, We can double check those and check out the vertical height of this and you can see it's exactly one inch now. So that's the very first method of one way I increased the height of the slots. Okay so now the second method is going to be a little bit different and this time we're only going to affect the slot height and not the entire project.
And I like to call this method, the cut scale join method. So it's a three-step process. So the first thing we're going to do is select the object. And then we're going to go to node editing by typing the letter N and this will be the first step of cutting this shape out. So you're just going to right click where the slot joins back to the outer shape, and you just want to click cut vector, and you're going to do that on the top and bottom to cut that away.
Okay now we can exit our node editing, typing the letter N again. And now you can see, we have two separate shapes. So now with this slot selected, we're going to go to our second step, which is the scaling. So we're going to go to our scale tool and this time we're going to be in the inches or metric, depending on what you're working with.
And if you just want to affect the height, you want to make sure you turn off the X and Y that will keep the width the same. And then up here, you have to decide where you want to anchor from depending on how you want to move this slot. So, if you want to keep the slot centered, like we did at the example at the top, you're going to keep the anchor point in the center.
If you want to keep the measurement at the top of the slot, then you'll anchor at the top. Doesn't matter left or right in this case, because we're only affecting the height. And same thing if you want to keep the measurement at the bottom, then select one of the bottom anchors. In this case, we're going to go with the center point.
And that's going to keep the slot centered of our project. So now we have our anchor set, we have the X and Y turned off. Now we're going to just scale up the height. So in this case, we're going to type in one inch because that's the size we want and then click apply. And there you go now our slot is scaled up to one inch.
So now we can click close and now for our last step is to join everything back together. So in this case, since we have a slight overlap. You can do this by going to the interactive trim tool, which is the scissors and make sure this checkbox is turned on to rejoin everything back together and just click those two little spots and that will trim those away.
And now when you click close, it will join it all back together. Now, if you were to anchor off the top or bottom to move the slot, just one direction, you will only have to trim one edge, but the other edge may still be unjoined. So you're just wanting to go to your join tool, which is the letter J to open this up and just click join with everything selected.
Okay so that is method number two. Now the next three methods all have to do with node editing. So with these ones, we won't have to cut anything apart. We're just going to move the nodes and I'll show you three different ways to do that. So for this third method, we're going to use the properties of the nodes.
So if we were to select the entire shape and go to node editing, typing the letter N. If you want to keep the slot still centered, we're going to have the top nodes up and the bottom nodes down. Otherwise, if you just wanted to move it one way, you can just move one set of these nodes. So to do this, what we want to do is select two nodes at the same time.
So I'm going to draw a selection box from left to right around these two top nodes. And you'll see, those will now turn red, letting us know they are selected. So now youjust want to right click on either one of those nodes. And then come down to the bottom where it says properties, and that's going to pop up this box here to be able to move the nodes.
So since this is three quarters of an intro right now, and we want to make it one inch, but we want to keep it centered. That means we have to move the top up one eighth and the bottom down one eighth. So to move the top up, we want to go in a relative position and we want to go in the Y direction one eighth of an inch.
So we're going to type in 0.125, and click apply. And there we go that just moved that up one eighth of an inch. So currently this is now seven eights of an inch. So now we have to move the bottom down that same one eighth. So the same method, we'll just draw a selection box around those two nodes and then right click on one of them.
And click properties, and that's going to pop up this box. This time we're going down, so we're going to go in a negative direction. So it'll still be in the Y direction, but we're going to go negative 0.125 and click apply. And there we go now it is still centered and everything is still joined together.
But now it is one inch instead of the three quarters that it was before. And then we can just exit our node editing and it's all done. So that was method number three. Now let's look at our fourth method. This method is going to be similar, except this time we're going to skip the step of opening up the node properties.
So we're going to select the shape again and go to the node edit mode by typing the letter N and then select the two nodes at top. And instead of opening up the properties, what you can actually do is first, you want to make sure your smart snapping is turned on. So we're going to go in a nice straight direction.
And then you're going to click on one of the red nodes and drag in the distance that you want to go. And you can see right by your cursor, it's going to show you the actual distance that you're moving right now. But in this case, I can't get it to snap at that exact distance that I want of 0.125.
So what you're going to do while you're holding in your left mouse button, you're going to type on your keyboard 0.125e, and you'll see at the very bottom right corner of the screen, it'll show you that value that you're typed in. And then with your left mouse button still held in, you're going to click enter.
And now that's going to move it the exact one eighth of an inch. And then we're going to do the same thing at the bottom. You're going to draw a selection box around the two nodes at the bottom click, one of them and drag in the direction that you want to go and type in 0.152, while still holding in your mouse and click enter.
And there we go. Now it is one inch and they're moved exactly the eighth inch up and down. So that was our fourth method. Now our fifth and final method we're going to look at today is going to be with the guidelines. So up at the very top, you're going to have the ruler up here. And if you click on that ruler and drag down, you can snap right on top of the edges of the slot.
So we can snap one at the top and we can bring another guideline down and snap at the bottom. So now we have a guideline for both the top and the bottom. Now you just want to right click on a guideline and that's going to open up the guide properties. So as you could see at the top here, we have our current position and our new position.
If you have an exact figure here, you can type it right in. So three and seven eights, plus an eighth of an inch should equal four inches. But sometimes this may not be a nice even number that you can add onto. So instead, what you can do is type right in the box, right after thenumber, type in your plus sign and then the number you want to move.
So in this case, it'll be 0.125 and then click the equal sign. And that will give you your exact number. And then you want to clickapply. And now it just moved up one eighth of an inch. And now we're going to close this box and do the same thing down here. We're going to right click. And this time we want to go down one eighth of an inch.
So we're going to do minus 0.125,. And then click equals and that will give us our new number. Then click apply and then click close. And now you can see our guidelines have moved one eighth from top and bottom. So now we just have to select our shape and go to the node editing by typing the letter N and then we're going to do the same method as before.
We're going to draw a selection box around two of these. And then we're going to zoom in and click on one of them and drag up until it snaps onto that guideline. And we'll do the same thing down here, select two click and drag until it snaps. And there we go, now we can exit our node editing and our shape has now been increased to one inch for the slot width.
So now you can either hide these guidelines or just right click on them and delete them to remove them out of the way. And there we go. That is five different methods you can use to increase the slot width of different shapes. So I would highly encourage you to practice those, to get the hang of them.
And like I said, below this video, I have this exact file that you can practice with if you'd like, and if this helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
Okay. And if you would like to follow along with this video, I will have this example file listed down below that you can download and follow along with the lesson. Okay so we're going to look at all five methods here. The very first method is going to be if you're using multiple slots and you want to scale them all the same time, as well as scale the entire project.
So just be aware of this method will scale the size of your project as well. Sometimes you want to do that if you want projects to fit into certain slots, but sometimes you won't want that. And in the next four methods, we'll show you without scaling the project. And for all five of these methods, I recommend turning on your geometry and smart snapping, that makes it much easier for the process here.
So for this method, in order to scale these slots up, we need to know the percentage that we need to scale the entire design. So to do that, what I like to do is go to the draw line tool and I draw a temporary line from this point to this point, and that gets our current slot height. And then if I right-click, that will stop that line and exit the tool.
And now with that line selected, we can go to our scaling tool, which the shortcut for this is the letter T. And you can see our current slot height is three quarters of an inch. So from our example here, we know that we want to go up to one inch in height, and we're going to do that for both of these slots.
Both of these slots are currently three quarters of an inch. So if we take this height and we're going to type in the number that we want it to be. So in this case, it'll be one inch and you're not going to apply that change right now. What we're after here is the percentage. So you can see by scaling it up to one inch, that's going to increase this line by 133.3333%.
So now we can take that percentage and use that to scale our entire design. And that will scale both slots at the same time. And like I said, it will also scale the design bigger as well. So just be aware of that. So now that we have that percentage, you could just memorize that or write it down. And then we're going to select our design without applying that change.
And now we're going to switch this to percentage and you want to make sure your X and Y is linked together. And we're going to anchor off the center that way the center point stays where it's at. And now we just type in that percentage that we just figured out. So it was 133.33333. And now if we click apply, you can see that increased the size of the entire design as well as both slot heights.
So now if it closes out and we go to our measuring tool, We can double check those and check out the vertical height of this and you can see it's exactly one inch now. So that's the very first method of one way I increased the height of the slots. Okay so now the second method is going to be a little bit different and this time we're only going to affect the slot height and not the entire project.
And I like to call this method, the cut scale join method. So it's a three-step process. So the first thing we're going to do is select the object. And then we're going to go to node editing by typing the letter N and this will be the first step of cutting this shape out. So you're just going to right click where the slot joins back to the outer shape, and you just want to click cut vector, and you're going to do that on the top and bottom to cut that away.
Okay now we can exit our node editing, typing the letter N again. And now you can see, we have two separate shapes. So now with this slot selected, we're going to go to our second step, which is the scaling. So we're going to go to our scale tool and this time we're going to be in the inches or metric, depending on what you're working with.
And if you just want to affect the height, you want to make sure you turn off the X and Y that will keep the width the same. And then up here, you have to decide where you want to anchor from depending on how you want to move this slot. So, if you want to keep the slot centered, like we did at the example at the top, you're going to keep the anchor point in the center.
If you want to keep the measurement at the top of the slot, then you'll anchor at the top. Doesn't matter left or right in this case, because we're only affecting the height. And same thing if you want to keep the measurement at the bottom, then select one of the bottom anchors. In this case, we're going to go with the center point.
And that's going to keep the slot centered of our project. So now we have our anchor set, we have the X and Y turned off. Now we're going to just scale up the height. So in this case, we're going to type in one inch because that's the size we want and then click apply. And there you go now our slot is scaled up to one inch.
So now we can click close and now for our last step is to join everything back together. So in this case, since we have a slight overlap. You can do this by going to the interactive trim tool, which is the scissors and make sure this checkbox is turned on to rejoin everything back together and just click those two little spots and that will trim those away.
And now when you click close, it will join it all back together. Now, if you were to anchor off the top or bottom to move the slot, just one direction, you will only have to trim one edge, but the other edge may still be unjoined. So you're just wanting to go to your join tool, which is the letter J to open this up and just click join with everything selected.
Okay so that is method number two. Now the next three methods all have to do with node editing. So with these ones, we won't have to cut anything apart. We're just going to move the nodes and I'll show you three different ways to do that. So for this third method, we're going to use the properties of the nodes.
So if we were to select the entire shape and go to node editing, typing the letter N. If you want to keep the slot still centered, we're going to have the top nodes up and the bottom nodes down. Otherwise, if you just wanted to move it one way, you can just move one set of these nodes. So to do this, what we want to do is select two nodes at the same time.
So I'm going to draw a selection box from left to right around these two top nodes. And you'll see, those will now turn red, letting us know they are selected. So now youjust want to right click on either one of those nodes. And then come down to the bottom where it says properties, and that's going to pop up this box here to be able to move the nodes.
So since this is three quarters of an intro right now, and we want to make it one inch, but we want to keep it centered. That means we have to move the top up one eighth and the bottom down one eighth. So to move the top up, we want to go in a relative position and we want to go in the Y direction one eighth of an inch.
So we're going to type in 0.125, and click apply. And there we go that just moved that up one eighth of an inch. So currently this is now seven eights of an inch. So now we have to move the bottom down that same one eighth. So the same method, we'll just draw a selection box around those two nodes and then right click on one of them.
And click properties, and that's going to pop up this box. This time we're going down, so we're going to go in a negative direction. So it'll still be in the Y direction, but we're going to go negative 0.125 and click apply. And there we go now it is still centered and everything is still joined together.
But now it is one inch instead of the three quarters that it was before. And then we can just exit our node editing and it's all done. So that was method number three. Now let's look at our fourth method. This method is going to be similar, except this time we're going to skip the step of opening up the node properties.
So we're going to select the shape again and go to the node edit mode by typing the letter N and then select the two nodes at top. And instead of opening up the properties, what you can actually do is first, you want to make sure your smart snapping is turned on. So we're going to go in a nice straight direction.
And then you're going to click on one of the red nodes and drag in the distance that you want to go. And you can see right by your cursor, it's going to show you the actual distance that you're moving right now. But in this case, I can't get it to snap at that exact distance that I want of 0.125.
So what you're going to do while you're holding in your left mouse button, you're going to type on your keyboard 0.125e, and you'll see at the very bottom right corner of the screen, it'll show you that value that you're typed in. And then with your left mouse button still held in, you're going to click enter.
And now that's going to move it the exact one eighth of an inch. And then we're going to do the same thing at the bottom. You're going to draw a selection box around the two nodes at the bottom click, one of them and drag in the direction that you want to go and type in 0.152, while still holding in your mouse and click enter.
And there we go. Now it is one inch and they're moved exactly the eighth inch up and down. So that was our fourth method. Now our fifth and final method we're going to look at today is going to be with the guidelines. So up at the very top, you're going to have the ruler up here. And if you click on that ruler and drag down, you can snap right on top of the edges of the slot.
So we can snap one at the top and we can bring another guideline down and snap at the bottom. So now we have a guideline for both the top and the bottom. Now you just want to right click on a guideline and that's going to open up the guide properties. So as you could see at the top here, we have our current position and our new position.
If you have an exact figure here, you can type it right in. So three and seven eights, plus an eighth of an inch should equal four inches. But sometimes this may not be a nice even number that you can add onto. So instead, what you can do is type right in the box, right after thenumber, type in your plus sign and then the number you want to move.
So in this case, it'll be 0.125 and then click the equal sign. And that will give you your exact number. And then you want to clickapply. And now it just moved up one eighth of an inch. And now we're going to close this box and do the same thing down here. We're going to right click. And this time we want to go down one eighth of an inch.
So we're going to do minus 0.125,. And then click equals and that will give us our new number. Then click apply and then click close. And now you can see our guidelines have moved one eighth from top and bottom. So now we just have to select our shape and go to the node editing by typing the letter N and then we're going to do the same method as before.
We're going to draw a selection box around two of these. And then we're going to zoom in and click on one of them and drag up until it snaps onto that guideline. And we'll do the same thing down here, select two click and drag until it snaps. And there we go, now we can exit our node editing and our shape has now been increased to one inch for the slot width.
So now you can either hide these guidelines or just right click on them and delete them to remove them out of the way. And there we go. That is five different methods you can use to increase the slot width of different shapes. So I would highly encourage you to practice those, to get the hang of them.
And like I said, below this video, I have this exact file that you can practice with if you'd like, and if this helped you out, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
