Production engine for Adobe Illustrator · Mac & Windows
True-shape nesting for sign shops and CNC, laser and vinyl cutting. Offcuts come back into the next job, and every cut leaves with its real time and a DXF your machine cuts as is.
Illustrator 2024 and newer · Apple Silicon and Intel · Windows
01 / Nesting
Outlined text, groups and compound paths are nested as what they are. A letter keeps its counter, the counter survives into the cut file, and small parts can go inside it. What does not fit spills onto the next sheet, with utilization per sheet.
02 / Offcuts
On apply, every usable leftover is squared off with straight cuts, cut together with the parts and saved to the library with its material and thickness. Next time, “Nest in offcuts first” fills them smallest to largest before opening a new sheet, and tells you exactly which one it used and how it turned out.
03 / Cutting
Pick the machine that will cut and the panel adapts. CNC gets the bit, the cut side and tabs. Laser gets the beam width. Vinyl gets nothing to compensate. Time comes from that machine's speeds, plunge by plunge.
04 / Batches
Every layout is saved as an order of the document, without applying. Check the orders of the same material, thickness and sheet and press Nest together: they share sheets, each order keeps its color and its own layer in the DXF, and you see the savings against doing them one by one. Mark an order “Do not move” and the rest nest around it.
Before you press Nest ↘
One button shows what Nest is about to use, station by station: parts, material and usable offcuts, machine and compensation, rotations and keep-out zones, cut path, document. Each row takes you where to change it.
How it works
Select the parts in Illustrator and press Load selection. Outlined text, groups and compound paths are read as they are. Or type parts by size, or paste a cut list.
Cut lines are found by spot color or layer name (Cut, CutContour, Die, Thru). Curves are flattened adaptively, and the DXF can carry true arcs if your machine prefers them. The bit not fitting a hole is reported before you cut.
Sheet size, gap and margin. Material and thickness name the layers and files. CNC, laser or vinyl cutter, each with its own speeds.
Default sheet 240 × 118 cm. Bits 3.175, 4 and 6 mm. Compensation applied before nesting with miter joins. Laser kerf 0.1 to 0.3 mm. Tabs only on parts narrower than four bit diameters.
Watch it nest. Read sheets, utilization, meters of cutting, plunges, minutes, m² and waste. Move a part by hand if you like; the panel warns about overlaps.
NFP engine in a separate thread; from 200 parts it switches to a band engine built for big jobs: 400 letters in about 4 seconds, 2 000 in about 23, none left out. Three saved layouts and a side-by-side compare.
Apply places the layout in the document. Export writes DXF, SVG, vector PDF, a printable cut sheet and a PNG. The offcut goes to the library.
DXF R12, $INSUNITS 4, one layer per CAD color with its ACI number, entities in cut order. Applying twice never piles anything up.
The engine
Each station takes care of one place where a job usually loses material or time, and tells you in material and minutes what it kept.
Sheets get opened before the last one is full, and nesting by hand leaves gaps nobody measures.
Nests by real shape, fits small parts inside letter counters and rotates each part. Utilization is measured sheet by sheet.
sheets · utilization %Offcuts pile up on a shelf, and finding one that fits takes longer than opening a new sheet.
Each offcut is squared off with straight cuts (rectangle, L, U or triangle), cut with the parts and saved to the library on apply. The next job fills it first.
offcut used · sheets not openedEach order is cut on its own sheet, even when two of them share material.
Orders of the same material share sheets, and an order marked “Do not move” stays exactly where it was.
savings against one by oneMachine time is estimated by eye, and the quote absorbs the difference.
Time comes from that machine's own speeds, plunge by plunge, before anything is cut.
minutes · meters of cut · plungesThe cut order is left to chance: extra travel between parts, and parts that shift when holes go last.
Holes before outlines, from your machine's origin, with compensation already in the file.
meters of rapid travelSome problems only show up at the router: a bit that does not fit a hole, a part short by the tool width. Each one costs material and machine time.
You are told before cutting, with the part and what to do. Compensation is applied once, so the part measures what the file says.
warnings before cuttingBefore a job reaches the machine, you already have its account in material and time: sheets, m², utilization, meters of cut, plunges and minutes. The price is yours to set.
Pricing
Fewer sheets opened, offcuts back in the job, and minutes you know before cutting. Monthly or yearly, cancel anytime.
7-day free evaluation, full panel unlocked, no card needed. After that, $9.99 a month or $99 a year, renewed automatically. Cancel anytime from the panel or the Lemon Squeezy portal.
Two numbers you already know. No percentages.
How it’s calculated: with the same 400 letters, 15 to 60 cm tall, nesting by bounding box takes 19 sheets and by true shape 15: 4 in every 19 are never opened. We apply that to your sheets. The panel gives you the figure for each job before cutting.
Before you start
If your question is not here, write to us. We answer with what to do next.
Illustrator 2024 and newer, on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows.
Download the installer from the email and open it. On a Mac, until Apple’s official signature is ready, macOS asks for permission once: the disk has a “Allow · Permitir” shortcut that opens Privacy & Security, where you click Open Anyway. On Windows, if “Windows protected your PC” appears, click More info and then Run anyway. Step-by-step guide with every screen →
No, and it tells you so with what to do: create outlines. Once outlined, every letter is a part with its counter.
Yes, if you choose a bit or a beam width. The cut line is offset with sharp corners, so the part measures what the file says. Your CAM does not compensate again.
Yes. Choose the machine in station 3. Laser uses the beam width; vinyl cutters compensate nothing. Time is estimated from the speeds you enter for each machine.
You are warned before cutting, with the part and the hole named. That hole is not sent to be cut wrong.
To activate and, from then on, to confirm the license. The panel does that on its own every time you open it with internet, and nestflow.updater renews it even when Illustrator is closed; offline, it keeps working for up to seven days. This is not a charge: the subscription is billed monthly or yearly.
Yes, by itself. Every job is kept in Documents/NESTFLOW and inside the .ai itself. When you open the panel it offers to resume the last job and finds the parts in the document again.
Never. Your documents, parts and layouts stay on your computer. The only thing that reaches our servers is what the license needs.
The next cut is yours
Five minutes to install. Your first 7 days are free.