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Getting Organized and Making Mac Owners Happy
 June 28th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley

This weekend was spent on two of the items that have been on my To Do list for a long time. First of all, I discovered that the WMV files produced by Camtasia Studio 7 are viewable on Mac’s! Since starting this blog over two years ago, I’ve heard from quite a few of my readers, who own Macs, that they REALLY wanted to be able to watch my videos without having to switch over to Windows. Well, check them out now! I converted almost a hundred videos this weekend to replace the ones currently at this site. And a BIG thank you to my dear friend, Jenn the Hacker, who was the one to discover that my latest videos were working on her Mac! : )

Since I had to re-upload all of these videos, I took the time to accomplish a second item on the To Do list, which was to reorganize the videos. I guess I’ve always had a bit of a hang-up about folders with too many files. When collecting anything in large numbers, I find a need to arrange them in some sort of orderly way to make finding what I need quicker and easier. I think they call it being “anal?” lol

So, all of the blog videos and miscellaneous other free videos have been arranged into a series of categories: Features, Designing, Editing, Text, Support, Import Export, and Rhinestones. And you’ll find links to these under the Support tab here (and then click on Videos). OR, you can just click on this link:

Free Videos

Note that the Support section will continue to grow as I remember specific tutorials I need to share, as well as new videos that need to be made. If you find anything you’d like to see added, be sure to let me know and I’ll do my best to make it available.


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Customizing Hot Keys
 June 2nd, 2010 by Sandy McCauley

KNK/ACS/KNKGE/DM offers the ability to set up your own hot keys (menu and tool shortcuts) to make your use of the software faster and easier. I’ve been aware of this capability since writing the first KNK user manual over 3 years ago, however, it’s only been in recent months, since using the single-letter alignment short cut keys (T, L, B, R, C, and E) in rhinestone designing, that it dawned on me just how incredibly useful it would be to set up more of these single strokes for other functions that I use repeatedly. So, I started making a list of my most-used functions and matching up letters for the hot keys that would be easy to remember, such as:

A for Array
D for Cutting Defaults
E for Export
F for Fit Object to Path
G for Delete all Guides
I for Install Fonts
N for Notes
O for Outline
etc etc

So, to encourage all of you to do the same, I created a short video showing how to do this:

Setting Up Hot Keys

I also created a list of suggestions. Note that in same cases I’ve listed several options, so that you can decide which assignment would make the most sense. For example, where I used “F” for Fit Object to Path, you might prefer to use “F” for Flip or Install Fonts. The idea is for you to pick what is most useful for your work AND will be easy for you to remember.

Suggestions for Single Letter Hot Keys

And then, so that you can have your own cheat sheet to use until you have your new hot keys memorized, I created a form with the 26 letters of the alphabet listed, along with the other available keys you can use to set up additional shortcuts. Note that Ctrl 0 – 9 are available, along with the keys: Home, End, Page Up and Page Down. However, in some releases of the software, Ctrl 4 and Ctrl 5 have already been assigned to Layout>Arrange and Distribute>Align to Selected>Equal Vertical Spacing and Equal Horizontal Spacing, respectively. I have decided to release those two and assign V and H to those functions instead, because they are SO very useful in rhinestone pattern tweaking. : )

Custom Hot Key Cheat Sheet Form

Next, if you also want the complete list of ALL shortcuts in the software, then here’s the latest list that I have and use in the releases of the user manuals. If you know of any others not on my list, then please let me know. I like to keep the list current:

All Software Shortcuts

Finally, here’s a list of my all-time favorites:

Favorite Short Cut Keys in KNK Studio

Whew… enough on the hot keys? If not, then let me know what I missed! :P


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Align to Last Object
 May 29th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley


What is “Align to Last Object?” Well, for the first 3 years of using this software, I didn’t really think about it. However, after I started helping my rhinestone customers learn the various methods of creating and editing patterns, I discovered that the shortcut keys of “R, L, B, and T” could be very handy for aligning circles either vertically or horizontally. The only problem was that I could never figure out exactly which circle was being used as the reference point, i.e. which circle was the “last object.”

I did figure out that if I performed a marquee-select of a group of objects, that the last object was always the last one in the group either to the left or to the bottom of the selection. But that really didn’t make the function all that useful since the last one in the marquee-select could very well NOT be the one I wanted as the alignment point. So, I posted over on CADLink’s Forum, received a response, and now understand how to preset which object to use as the reference object for alignment. This makes the function a LOT more usable. Have a look at the video:

Align to Last Object

This function will obviously be very handy for those tweaking rhinestone patterns, especially when using the hot keys of: L, R, T, B, or even the C and E. But others who are doing design work in KNK, ACS, or DM will probably also occasionally find the need to align objects specifically to another.

Before I close, there have been a few changes made to this site in the past fews. First off, Chad added a Testimonials section to the lower left hand column. He also added a new Gallery plug-in and I’ve converted over one of the photo albums: 20 Plus Materials Cut on a Klic-N-Kut. See if you like the new format. I’ll gradually get the other albums converted. Finally, the video capturing software used for today’s video is Camtasia Studio 7 and does it ever ROCK! It allows me to add features such as showing which keys I’m pressing on the keyboard, larger cursors, zooming, titling, and more. Thanks to Melinda Stolarek for convincing me I HAD to have it! :P I’m still using the one month free trial, but will bite the bullet and order it when the trial period runs out.


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Disproportionately Resizing Fold-up Projects
 May 17th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley


Thank you to Heather L for today’s subject. Heather sent a fold-up gable box pattern that was sized to ~ 10 x 6.5. She wanted to make it as large as possible for a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock. Now the issue with resizing fold-up patterns is that you have to keep the overall width and height proportional or your pattern will not necessarily still fold up correctly. This was precisely the situation with Heather’s box. After stretching the image to fit a large square shape, the side flaps were too large to fold inwards to form the box.

Not to worry! This is a perfect application for the Ginsu Knife tool. Once I stretched the image, I cut off the two flaps and resized their width to match base of the box. Then I welded them back into place. The key was to just know which dimensions needed to still match so that the box pattern would work. The only thing is that you may need to do a test cut after stretching any given fold-up pattern to see for yourself which parts still work and which parts will need adjusting. If you have a pattern yourself that you cannot figure out, then please send it to me! This is a terrific new subject to explore.

Here’s the video to watch: Heather’s Gable Box Resizing


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Creating a Shaped Greeting Card
 May 12th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley


Thanks to Margaret for today’s idea. She posted to the Klic-N-Kut Yahoo group with a welding issue. She wanted to weld a partial outline of flowers to a flower pot for the purpose of creating a shaped greeting card. The problem is that you cannot weld unclosed objects. In Margaret’s project, by turning on Fill, you can see that the top part is not closed and bottom part is closed:

In general, when you need to do a basic weld on two objects and either or both are not closed, it’s easy to get them closed. If the path you need to close is continuous, then just select the image and go to Arrange>Close Graphics. Or, if the path is not continuous, then you can try Arrange>Connect Path and enter a fairly large value (try 1) and all gaps will close… hopefully… although, you may find that the wrong ends get joined together diagonally across your image!

In today’s video,

Flower Pot Design

I show another way to connect the two ends of a gap. Just select the end nodes and use the middle top icon to connect the ends with a straight line. Then you can proceed with the rest of the weld.

For those interested in designing shaped greeting cards, watch the entire video to see how easy it is to use the Flip and Weld technique to create perfect symmetry and even a dashed fold line, if desired.


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