Computer store information in many different formats which are optimized for different attributes, varying from size, to interoperability, backwards compatibility, sound or visual quality, or other factors. Many times different programs can understand how to read and wrote various types of files for example, you can open or save a Microsoft Word document as a docx or txt file. Picking the correct file format for your project will ensure you have an appropriate user experience at the end of the day.

​

Laser printers like the Glowforge, use scaled vector images or svg files to understand what you want to etch or cut.   Vector files save the image in terms of points on a Cartesian plane, which are connected by lines and curves to form shapes. One of the advantages of this file format is that the points, lines, and curves that make up the design may easily be scaled up or down to any resolution without any aliasing. 

​

Many image file formats remove information from a picture in order to make it load quickly and not take up a lot of space on a computer.  This is great if the picture is only going to be viewed at a specific aspect ration, but if you want to zoom in and look at details, you may see that the image is pixelated.  This pixelation is known as aliasing.

​

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free, open-source, vector graphics program that will allow you to create and edit vector graphics.  It's compatible with Microsoft, Apple, and GNU/Linux systems so it should be compatible with most peoples computers.

​