Cutter Settings
Make sure that your cutter is set up with the settings shown.
A guide on how to change the Force of the blade can be found Here
Document
Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator to the size you require (A3 in this demo)
Artwork
Place your artwork onto the A3 Sheet.
Crops
Navigate to:
File > Cutting Master 4 > Cut/Plot...
and use the following settings.
Units: Millimetres
Margin: 10.00mm
Thickness: 1.00mm
Length: 20.00mm
Relative to page: Enabled
Cut Path
Make a copy of your vector and change the colour to all black.
Navigate to:
Window > Stroke
and use the settings shown in the image.
Change the stroke colour to a unique colour (a colour not used anywhere else in the artwork)
Outline the Stroke
This can be done by navigating to:
Object > Path > Outline Stroke
Merge
Open Pathfinder:
and click the Merge button.Window> Pathfinder
Then:
1. de-select everything on the document
2. use the direct selection tool (white arrow) to click on the newly created stroke
3. navigate to "Select > Same > Fill Color" and press DELETE on your keyboard
Clean Up
Delete any excess bits on the page that you don't want to be cut.
Finishing Up
Place the colour artwork behind the black artwork.
Layers
Navigate to:
Click the burger icon in the top right hand corner of the layers panel and create two new layers.Window > Layers
Splitting your (print) artwork from the cut line by placing them on individual layers will make it a lot easier to handle the artwork now, and in future.
Done
Your artwork is now ready.
Make sure to disable/hide the cut layer when printing (eye icon next to the layer).
Make sure to disable/hide the print layer when cutting.