How to Enable Guides in Cricut Design Space

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Last Updated on June 20, 2022 by Chris Butler

Hello Cricut Crafters! Today I want to break down the newest Design Space update for you. We now have Cricut Guides to help us make templates for various things like Print Then Cut designs, signs, stencils, and more.

If the update isn’t available to you yet, don’t worry. This will be a rolling update released to Design Space users at different times. The update will be available for PC and iOS users, but there has been no word from Cricut about a timeline for Android users (sorry!).

I’m excited to show you this handy new feature, so let’s jump right in!

What are Cricut Guides & What Can I Use Them For?

Cricut Guides are lines that you can add in Cricut Design Space to help make your design, but they won’t cut out on your mat. This feature makes it easier to create a template for designs that you are working on that need to be a certain size.

For instance, if you want to make something with Print Then Cut, your maximum design size is 6.75″x9.25″. You can use a guide to ensure that your design stays within those dimensions.

Guides would be so helpful while making Print Then Cut stickers! Check out my tutorial for Custom Die Cut Stickers here.

You can also use guides when you are making a sign and need your design to fit on a certain size board or canvas. Just make a guide, and you can visualize how big your design needs to be and what margins you will have around it.

Another great use for guides is to write yourself text notes. That’s right! Guides aren’t just limited to lines and shapes. You can turn your text into a guide and have a note that won’t go to your cut mat.

How to Use Cricut Guides Video

Watch the video below for step-by-step instructions on using guides in Cricut Design Space.

How to Use Cricut Guides

To show you how to use Cricut guides, I’m going to make a Print Then Cut template. To do this, start by making a square from your shapes menu.

Next, hit the unlock button at the bottom left of the shape. Then type your dimensions in at the top menu. For Print Then Cut you’ll need your square to be 6.75″ wide and 9.25″ high.

This is similar to how I might’ve made a guide for myself previously, but when I was done making my design, I had to remember to delete my square before clicking ‘Make It’.

Now, with our cool new guides feature I just have to click on my square and, from the operations menu at the top, change it from ‘Basic Cut’ to ‘Guide’.

After you’ve changed your square to a guide, you should be left with a red outline of your shape. The red line indicates that the shape is now a guide and will not be cut with the rest of your design.

Now that you know how much room you have you can create your design. Then, when you’re ready, click ‘Make It’.

As we go to the mat screen, you’ll see another update that Cricut has added. This is a pretty self-explanatory update that will just allow you to select how you will load your materials and select your material size.

Once you’ve selected how to load your materials, you will see your mats. Here on the mat screen, you can see that only the design is available to be cut. The guides that we made aren’t on the mat and will not cut.

That’s it! Now you’ve learned how to make guides in Cricut Design Space. You know how to make a template, or even leave yourself notes and enable guides that will now be cut.

PRO TIP: Make templates for the sizes you make the most, like stickers or shirts, and then save them to your projects. That way you won’t need to make a new template each time.

I hope you’re as excited about the new update as me. Thanks for crafting with me today. Let me know what fun things you’ll be using Cricut guides for!

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