Exact-Cut vs LXi

Exact-Cut is design-and-cut software for logos, shapes, lettering, pinstriping, and vinyl or card projects. Drawing tools include shape welding and a freestyle pen with automatic smoothing. Contour tools outline objects, shapes, and text, with controls for offsets, holes, insets, and contour bleed. It supports more than 100 materials, including vinyl, cardstock, heat transfer material, paper, fabric, leather, felt, and cork. A free clipart library provides project shapes and ready-to-cut box templates. Cutter connections include wireless Auto-Connectivity, USB, and U-Disk; the site also mentions smartphone wireless use. Exact-Cut works fully offline. It is free to download and use with supported cutters, but is included only with supported cutter models. Listed requirements are Windows 10 or later or macOS 10.16 Catalina or later, with at least 4GB RAM and 500MB disk space. The maker is Jinan Eternal Software Technology Ltd, based in Jinan, Shandong Province, China.

LXi 26 is Windows software for designing and producing vinyl cuts, signs, and large-format graphics. Its design tools cover text and shapes, bitmap editing, tracing, and Fit-to-Shape operations. Every edition reads SVG files and can import and edit older Flexi raster and vector files. An Adobe CC plugin sends Illustrator vectors to LXi and Photoshop raster work to LXi RIP Design. RIP Design also transfers files from CorelDraw, Illustrator, and Photoshop to Visual Production Manager. The maker lists support for more than 1,000 cutter models across 97 brands, including Vinyl Express, Graphtec, Roland, and GCC. Expert costs $595, paid once, Master Plus $1,095, paid once, and RIP Design $2,495, paid once. A 15-day trial is described on product pages, while the FAQ says one week. LXi runs on Windows 10 and 11; Mac installation through Parallels or Boot Camp is unsupported.