Silhouette Studio® Designer Edition and higher provides enhanced knife tools that allow for greater control and options for the Knife feature. To access the Knife tool in the Silhouette Studio®, select the Knife icon on the left:

Above the design window in the Quick-access Toolbar, you’ll see your knife options where you can choose how the knife will behave, along with choices of knife styles.

A series of knife types allows you to cut shapes with various patterns.

The first four knives are the same ones you’ll find in the Basic Edition, including Straight, Poly, Curve, and Freehand.

They allow you to draw a knife line point to point until you double click to end the created line, or simply release your mouse for “Freehand” or “Straight.”

The rest of the knife selections allow you to draw a patterned knife line through your image to cut it with the selected pattern. We’ll use the Triangular knife as an example on this oval to show how these Designer Edition knives work.  First, We will uncheck “Auto Apply” so we can do some manipulation before it processes the cut. Auto Apply is the default, so pay attention to that check box.

After selecting a knife, click and drag from one side of the shape to the other. Now you’re shown a series of control points allowing you to manipulate the knife line.

The bar in the middle allows you to slide left or right to increase or decrease the frequency of the effect.

The white points at either end allow you to move the position of knife line, which I typically use to get the right amount of the cut at the edges of my shape.

And the red point at the start of the knife line will control the height and depth of the effect.

When you have it how you like it, click “Apply.”

Finally, let’s talk about knife behavior. When you have an unfilled closed shape, you can choose to have your knife treat it as a solid or as an outline.

Treating it as a solid will re-close the image and seal up the slice you make. Treating it as an outline will just slice through the lines and leave it an open shape.

We hope these tips are helpful for you as you learn to use the Knife tool in Silhouette Studio®.