The company I work for has a strong focus on innovation and is constantly looking for ways to automate the delivery of files directly to production.
This drives us to combine intuition, analysis, technical skills, and—why not—a fair amount of creativity to develop solutions that streamline our workflows and generate time and cost savings.
One of the challenges I’ve been working on over the past six months involved the producibility of cutting paths (CutContour) for sticker products.
We had a 30% rejection rate from production due to files that contained a CutContour path with issues that caused cutting machines to stop. This resulted in lost material, wasted time, and operational inefficiencies.
Together with my team, we analyzed the problem cases, grouped them by type, and estimated the potential savings if we could resolve even part of the issue.
Our target was ambitious: recover at least 75% of the problematic cutting paths by reliably identifying and fixing them.
Problem categories
We identified four main types of issues:
• Open CutContour
• Covered CutContour
• Nested CutContour (two paths, one inside the other)
• CutContour used as fill
We tackled each issue one by one using Callas PDF Toolbox, moving on to the next only once we had a stable solution for the current one.
Results
After six months, we built a process plan that allowed us to recover 80% of the faulty files—5 percentage points above our initial target.
One key factor that simplified the process is that our product uses only one CutContour path per design, which helped streamline the solution logic.
Our approach
Here’s an overview of the strategy we applied:
• We created dedicated checks for each type of issue, designed to detect specific problems reliably.
• We developed targeted fixups for each check.
• The process plan runs in a loop:
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A check identifies a specific issue.
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The related fixup is applied.
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The output is fed back into the check chain.
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If further issues are found, the cycle repeats.
Issue breakdown and solutions
Open CutContour
Using the spot color as a reference, we verify that the number of open subpaths is zero. If not, we redraw the path using the “Create and apply shape” action, remove the original object, and rename the spot color of the new path correctly.
Covered CutContour
We use the “Object overlapping another object” check, comparing objects that share the same spot color. When triggered, we remove the object from the page using a dedicated fixup.
Nested CutContour
This check uses “Object inside a shape” with “Define shape” to detect a CutContour path inside another. If found, we rename the spot color of the inner object and delete it.
CutContour used as fill
We search for objects that are filled (but not stroked) with the CutContour spot color. When detected, we redraw the correct cutting path on top of the page content, using an alternative spot color (e.g., CutContour2).
This creates two overlapping paths: we then apply the same logic used for nested paths to remove the inner one, and finally rename the remaining spot color correctly.
A sample of our process plan is attached to this link:
CutContour Fixups_CallasForum.kfpx
I strongly believe in sharing knowledge, and I hope this work can be helpful to others facing similar challenges.
If anyone would like to share feedback or discuss further, I’d be happy to connect.
