Gypsy Tip - Loading the Mat .

I thought I had posted this but apparently not. So when I was asked this in the MB decide to dig up the photos as always pictures are better than words.
The trick to loading a mat is to keep the gypsy above and keep the mat below with the green arrows facing the same direction and then loading  or placing the paper. (Click on pic to enlarge and even though this is an Imagine mat it does not matter - and yes you can use imagine mat in cricut E - it's only vice versa not possible)

close up without the red circles so that you can see better

One other thing which helps is to get a mini photo holder and also when connecting  to cricut to keep the gypsy oriented in the way the mat goes in. That way you do not get confused.

After some time you do get used to this. But anything to make life simpler right?.. Hope this tip helps

Gypsy Tip - Selecting an image which is difficult to grab

Sometimes selecting an image gets difficult. There are 2 methods you can try to grab

1) Make the cursor smaller than the image. This way you can easily grab hold of the image. If even that's difficult - then zoom and then select the image and zoom back

2) Sometimes we see a huge selection box around an image and that's because the selection box is for the  relative size of the image. This makes it difficult to grab another image which you might have placed before and now falls under this selection box. So each time you select the 2nd one gets selected and not the poor image which is umbrella'ed (wow - what a word!Gads! I should have written Webster's dictionary!! ). To overcome this just set the actual dial size button ON (it will be yellow) That will get rid of the offending selection box around the other image and make it closely cropped around it's own image. Then select the other image. Remember that you have the actual dial size On though when you go do something - so switch off once you get the dirty job done :) ! Even here if you are still not able to grab - zoom and grab.
Hope that helps!!

Gypsy tip - Easy way to choose layers in a image especially when flipped

I have already talked about this. When you have an image (should be proportional ie golden link yellow)
and you want to choose the rest of the layers maybe in a different page then just copy the image and then keep adding the images. They will come automatically grouped and since cursor size is same all will fall in place provided the actual size button is not on.
But here is a cool thing  - did you know that if the image is flipped all the rest also come flipped

Images as it is and then layers. See how since they are all lined up in the image queue they will come grouped in the mat too. This was you can select image and instead of remembering cursor height and then selecting all you can have all fall in place without straining those noggins'

And now flipped image and then subsequent layers. You can see clearly because we have  word in this and it is flipped

Gypsy tip for the day - Welding

While welding lots of stuff - it is wise that you check each step by previewing to see if that is what you want. I know I keep saying this like a stuck gramophone record that the order of welding is important. It is. I have shown you that in the one of the beginning video. Just one step and we get different result.
Now to undo the step it is not enough if you just ungroup and change the order. You have to remember first to tap on the weld key so that it turns off and then ungroup (try ungrouping just  what you want and not everything) .Only then will the change reflect. Else it will remain the same.

Gypsy Tip for the day: Naming files in the Gypsy for easy sorting

The G sorts your files automatically first by numbers , then by capitals and then by the small letters. So if you want to reach important files easily - then add a number and then make the first letters capital. For e.g the way I do it is if I want some card dimensions as template so that I can open them later as template (or I can just even open the file and then add pages and elements on them and save it as new file without the 0 etc later) is to name the file 0Card4dot25x5dot5. The dot are for the decimal point as we should avoid using dashes and special characters in case the file throws up an error.
So do spend some time giving a name which will help you. Of course if you make a mistake you can always open the file and choose save as. Then open some other file to delete the first wrong filename as there is no close file in G and the file which is opened does not show up in the file names.

Gypsy tip for the day: To see which cartridge the image on the mat comes from.

If you are in build 0158 then all you have to do is go to the keypad layout and tap on the cartridge and from the cartridge dropdown list select used cartridges to see all the cartridges in the design.
But if you are in any build after 0142 (including 0158) then the  way to see is by selecting the image on the mat and going back to the keypad layout. There you will find the image on the queue. Hold the image with your stylus and you will see a square with the cartridge name in it pop up most probably coming up right under your hand lol . But for some like for me in 0155 , this didn't still do it. So if I pressed on the zoom button when I held the image over the stylus then I could see the cartridge name pop up right enough. You can let go of the stylus and then tap on the cartridge name pop up box and it will take you to the cartridge .
But as of yet you cannot get the exact key - button but it does bring up the keypad layout of the particular creative feature  and so is still an improvement from what we first had.
Hopefully this feature, hide & contour and selectively switching off of the template feature in each page will come soon (the last one particularly bugs me the greatest :)  ).

Gypsy Tip of the day - To see a larger view of image before adding it to the mat

When you are in the image queue and you need to add an image but if you cannot see clearly by just running your stylus over it then there is a new way since update 0148. You just have to press the zoom button and tap over the button and it'll show you the image in a full window. pressing zoom again reverts back to the keypad layout. Also in update 0155 and 0158 the zoom button and pan button can be used to scroll through any list. But do not let go of the button  else the list goes back to the original spot. Just make your selection while hanging on to the zoom or pan button.

Gypsy Tip - Checking for error in Gypsy files

The best way to check for errors in Gypsy files is by opening it in CDS. Choose the file option - gypsy in CDS and open the file from it's location in your computer. See if it opens correctly and also if it previews correctly. If there is no errors/exception thrown then the file is good to go.
It's a good method to follow for files you may have downloaded from other sites. Of course the files you have created directly in your G need pass through this ritual :) The reasoning for doing this is - If you load to Gypsy directy - the Gypsy or the Gypsy Sync does not show many errors messages at all as of yet . It will just load the file but you will see that the file either shows an empty mat or it just does not cut whatever is on the mat.
So it's always better to check the file in CDS(paid version) as it throws an error and sometimes tells you what went wrong if we click on the details.
I always prefer doing it this way for downloaded and also for converted files.

Gypsy - Tip for the day - naming files in DS for conversions

While converting from CDS .cut file to .gypsy file do not use dashes, commas or any special characters for then  you will see either an error popping up or sometimes it will just show up as a blank file without shooting out an error. (You can see the blank file in CDS itself - no need to load and check on gypsy).
Gypsy files do not accept dashes or any wild characters in the conversion. Spaces are OK. So take care while transfetring and delete the commas, dashes and any other wild card characters before saving as .gypsy.
And also remember not to use slanting and skewing as they will not translate in the to and fro conversions. If yu do use it you have to recreate the effect in the converted file and save.

Happy New Year and a Gypsy Tip - Open an image you don't have and build it.

Happy New Year to all of you.
And here's a tip for you. If you want to cut out any box or purse from any of the cartridge you don't have - then just place that image in page 1 and the on page 2 build it up inside with shapes from the cartridges you have and weld. You can then delete page 1 and you have a basket or bag which you can now cut.
You can build almost anything you have just between the 2 cartridges - Gypsy wanderings and George and basic shape. Ok let's throw Plantin in the fray too as it has many basic shapes too. If you want to add a  thin line - then see - my video how to add score marks and you can add that - just make it bigger for a line.

Gypsy tips - Ungrouping just a single image from a bunch of grouped images

Grouping is one of the main plus points in Gypsy. It's so easy now to just select a bunch of object and perform a single action on them. In CDS if you want a bunch of objects copied  to another page then you have to select each one individually  copy and then paste on another page. But here - as long as it's grouped  - wham ! just a single action.

Well if you look at Grouping carefully as soon as you group you cannot just leave it at that. Grouping needs another action to come out of that mode or complete the picture if you will. Try it yourself. Let's experiment. Randomly select 3 objects. To get a clearer picture - do not select in a single line in the keypad overlay (white box at the top) as this will make it automatically  grouped for you. We don't want that now. But instead select an image - go to the mat tap elsewhere - come back to keypad and select another image and do the same and then select another. Now you have 3 ungrouped images. Now press group and select all three and try tapping outside to get back your nudge keys - you will be stuck as you cannot get your nudge keys back. This means the action is not complete. To get out of the mode you atleast have to press preview. You have to press any other key .Is this a fault? No - since grouping is done so that you have to do something else to the image - anything weld, kern, rotate etc.

Now for the tip

Now after pressing preview twice (once to get out of group and once to get out of preview) just select one image in the group till that turns purple and press copy/paste. That image will also be blue as it is automatically grouped. 

And suppose you do not want that image only to be in a group. And you do not want to ungroup all the rest . How do you do that? 

Maybe you have spent hours over a complicated design and then mistakenly added another image in the image queue and it's grouped too and you don't want that ? Is there a way other than just deleting the image or just ungrouping and then cumbersomely grouping everything back together? Wouldn't that be a nightmare?  So what do you do?

Very simple. Tap out on the mat where it's clear and tap on the group button and just tap on the image you want ungrouped - it'll turn red (if the rest are welded) or black . Now just press preview to get out of grouping mode. Press preview again to get out of preview mode now and come back to the mat. Now you will have a set of grouped images and another ungrouped single image. You can check by tapping on the bunch of images - only those will be in blue and not the single image - Lo and behold you have just ungrouped one image from the bunch.
You can also press group again to get out of the group mode but in this case I wanted to avoid doing it for confusion

Hope that tip was useful...
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More Cricut Gypsy Tips

Here is another tip with your G
When you press the zoom button and tap 4 times i.e the max. as far as zoom can go - the squares match up exactly to scale. You can then take a ruler and measure up against the figure. This is very helpful while designing.
You can measure for eg how much of a image gets overlapped in welding or you can measure the height or sides of a triangle, octagon or hexagon  without the need to whip out your calculator and ruffling through those complicated :) (this coming from an engineer - well look how far I've fallen into this art world) mathematical formulas.
Ok - a question here to you all (if any of you are here ie :) )
Are any of you really reading my blog? I don't see any comments so don't know if I'm passing on useful info.. Should I continue posting? I don't want to write to myself. I would much rather paint

Gypsy tip for the day - Zooming to the maximum to get exact scaling

Zooming the mat/screen to max ( I think it is 3-4 taps) gets each box to measure exactly an inch. While designing I zoom max and take my ruler or the  rough template and put it up against mat to see if I have the dimensions right in my design.

Gypsy tip - Grouping or Welding Order

When making the exploding box I discovered something new - atleast to me while welding. The order in which you group or weld is important. A note on welding in gypsy - you do not necessarily need to group to weld. You just select click the weld button and then select the next shape.When you do not want to weld another shape just click on the weld button (it'll not be yellow anymore) and then add the shape. But grouping makes it so easy :) and we gypsy users are spoilt.
So coming back to the topic. It's better that you try with me here. Trial files 1 & 2 are in my blog under Test files. Download  both and open to see what I am talking about and then create a new file to try it out.
Hope you saw that and now let's try
New File - page 1
1.Set a cursor size  to 3 and select a square from gypsy wanderings.
2.Make 4 copies.
3.Ungroup everything to start over fresh.
4. Make the 1st square center square.
5. Next move the rest of the 4 squares on each side and overlap.
6. Press ungroup once again
7. Now press group and select the outside squares first and then lastly the center one
8. Press weld and preview
Here's the picture of the mat (trial file 1)

Now open new file (or you can open new page in the same file)
Follow steps 1 to 6
7) this time press group and select the center image first followed by the outer squares
8) Press weld and preview
here's how my mat looks like (view of .gypsy file in DS) - trial file 2

So grouping and welding order is important especially when you are closing the images. So next time if your welding does not seem right - you can check for this too :)