Cutting, Scoring, Engraving - what’s the difference?

Some laser cutter designs use scoring.

Scoring is essentially just cutting — except at a much lower power (or faster speed) so that the laser does not cut all the way through the material, but instead burns a line onto the surface of the material.

Note that scoring is different than engraving. Engraving is when the laser moves back and forth horizontally in order to gradually burn out a filled region on the surface of the material.

A common problem beginners run into is cutting the parts of the design that are intended to be scored, like in the photo above.

So how do you tell your laser to score some of the lines but cut other lines? The answer is by using different colors in your SVG. Each color can then be assigned a different operation, or different power and speed settings.

We’ve created helpful guides for the most common laser cutters and apps. Please use the links below to get the one that matches your machine:

• Using Cuttle with Glowforge
• Using Cuttle with LightBurn
• Using Cuttle with xTool Studio
• Using Cuttle with WeCreat MakeIt!