Customizable paper doll vectors

OK, this is a little bit of a contorted process, but if you are a paper doll fan, stay tuned. Once upon a time, there was a standalone computer program called Doll Factory from Pebble Creek Studios created so scrapbookers could print and cut out paper dolls for their pages. The product and company haven’t been heard from in years, but a demo version is still hosted on the Epson site.

Doll Factory demo download

If you do not already have a utility or driver on your computer to print to pdf, Download and install one. I use Cute PDF on my PC.

Open Doll Factory and design your doll following the very easy steps on the screen. Be sure to load up on accessories.

When you are done, go to tab 5 and click on the page that shows the whole scene in color.

Now click Print, but instead of choosing a printer, choose Cute PDF  to save as a pdf file. It will prompt you for a file name and save location. Be sure to store it where you will be able to find it.

Open Inkscape and import your new PDF. Click OK with the default import settings. Select the entire drawing and ungroup (under the Object menu).

You will see boxes appear around each element and you can rearrange them by color or however you like.

As you can see from the outline view, these shapes are already vectors and don’t need to be traced.

When you get the file how you like it, save it as an svg and import into SCAL. Once you’ve extracted all the outlines you want, just keep them stored in Inkscape files and you won’t have to go back to Doll Factory.

And there ya have it. It’s not like I didn’t warn you about the geekiness.