It has been a while since my last journal post. Since 1.0.17 there have been four releases, a new Facebook group, a calibration wizard, and now a second printer. This one is a big one, so let's start with the headline.
StixCut now works with the Cricut StickerPix Print+Cut
StixCut 1.0.21 supports the Cricut StickerPix Print+Cut alongside the Liene PixCut S1. It works on Mac and Windows, over USB and Bluetooth, and it uses the exact same print and cut workflow. Turn it on and it shows up in the Device Picker next to any PixCut S1s you already have. New printers are named by model, like StickerPix-XXXX or PixCut S1-XXXX, until you give them a name of your own. See the supported printer models.
A couple of notes so nobody gets surprised:
- The print-only Cricut StickerPix Print (no "+Cut") is not supported. StixCut needs a cutter to contour-cut stickers, and that machine doesn't have one.
- On Windows, the first time you connect a StickerPix by USB, StixCut offers a one-time Finish printer USB setup step. It asks for administrator approval, and you only need it once per printer on each PC. Bluetooth works without it. The same step shows up for a PixCut S1 if Windows ever fails to set up its USB connection on its own.
- Try not to have Cricut Design Space or another app connected to the printer at the same time as StixCut. They will fight over it.
Everything else in StixCut just works with it: templates, perf-cuts, peel tabs, Auto-Pack, calibration, all of it.
More printers, more stickers, less clicking
You can now connect several PixCut S1 and StickerPix printers by USB at the same time, on Mac and Windows. Each printer is listed separately and jobs spread across whichever ones are idle. Unplug one and the others keep going. If the unplugged printer is still in Bluetooth range, it stays available over Bluetooth.
That pairs nicely with the new Bulk Print. Pick a pile of saved .stixcut designs, set a quantity for each one (up to 999 sheets), and queue them all without opening each document. Bulk jobs keep their own artwork and settings and get spread across every printer you have. This is the batch-printing work I promised back in 1.0.17, and I am really happy with how it turned out.
Back in 1.0.20, the Print Queue also got a big upgrade. It survives an app restart, shows every job with its status, and any finished or failed job can be sent again with Print again. There is a Print History log too, if you want to see what printed and what didn't. Right-click the Print Queue to open it.
Calibration, finally
"My cut is a little off from my print" has been the most common question since day one. In 1.0.20 I added a Cut Calibration wizard in Settings > Printer Details. It prints a test sheet, walks you through measuring it, and writes the alignment correction straight to the printer's firmware. It also finds separate kiss-cut and perf-cut pressure for each printer and each media type.
If you never perf-cut and don't want to wear down your cutting strip testing it, choose Alignment only. And if you already know a printer is about half a millimeter off, Manual Alignment Offset lets you just nudge it without running the wizard.
Borders, backgrounds, and better cut paths
You can now add a Sticker border to imported art: 0 to 10 mm, any color (white by default), and Centered, Outside, or Inside. The cut line never moves. Fill Background is now a live setting with its own color, so you can change it or turn it off later without touching the image. It sits next to Remove Background and Crop to cut path in the Inspector's Image section, so you don't have to dig through the right-click menu anymore.
The Cut Path Editor got some real path tools too. Right-click a node to open a path at that node, split a closed outline into two paths between two selected nodes, or join two open ends back together. Shift-click adds or removes individual nodes from the selection, which makes picking two nodes far apart much easier. The manual covers the node menu.
And a few cutting improvements I nerded out on:
- Overcut now only extends genuinely sharp corners, so smooth curves and rounded corners stay smooth. Its length is adjustable since 1.0.20.
- A new Cut-end extension setting (Settings > Cut) helps cuts finish cleanly where they start and stop.
- Cut margins no longer turn star points into long spikes. Sorry about the spiky stars.
- Cut paths no longer slowly drift while you edit them. Small accidental movements during clicks don't nudge nodes anymore.
Smaller things since 1.0.17
- Print Color Preview shows how a design will look on the printer's CMY-only output. It is a starting point and may need some work, so let me know how close it gets for you.
- Landscape Canvas, Fill Sheet, Fit to Sheet, and Split into Stickers make layout faster. Split into Stickers is great for turning a whole sticker sheet image into individual library stickers.
- Auto-Pack and auto-trace are much faster, especially with rotation on or very large images.
- Printer messages are clearer: ink cartridge problems, jams that tell you which cover to open, and more named phases like warming up and cleaning the print head.
- There is an optional reminder between sheets in multi-sheet runs, so you can clear finished output before the next sheet.
- Prints now stop if a sticker image can't load, instead of quietly printing a blank sticker and cutting around it.
- 1.0.19 fixed big Windows print and cut failures with non-English languages and number formats, plus better high-DPI scaling. (Thanks Jessica!)
- 1.0.18 added a setting to skip cut lines on import, and lowered the default safety margin from 2 mm to 0.8 mm to match the official Liene app.
One shout-out: the team at Blippa built a native StixCut export, so their users can print and cut smart QR-code asset stickers straight from their app. That is exactly the kind of thing I hoped the open file formats would make possible.
Come hang out
I started a StixCut Facebook group back in 1.0.18, since my posts kept landing in pending status on the PixCut group. It is the best place to share templates, tips, and bugs, and now it is open to StickerPix owners too. If you'd rather email, support@stixcut.com still comes straight to me.
You can read every change in the release notes, and the StixCut manual is fully updated for 1.0.21.
-Dan
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