Page designer guide — QuietBookCut

1. What the designer is

The designer is your felt-craft table on screen. You describe a shape, like "a red hooded cape", and it appears in your library, ready to cut. You drag shapes onto book pages and move them around until the page looks right.

When you're happy, you send the pages to download. That turns them into cut files (SVG) for your cutting machine.

The page designer showing a Little Red Riding Hood page with two pine trees, a cottage, an orange wolf and two purple flowers, with numbered badges on the book bar, the tool bar, the page, the library and the Preview button.

1Book bar — your book's name, which page you're on, and a button for a new page.
2Tool bar — story ideas, undo, AI edits, arranging, grouping, attachment points and delete.
3The page — your quiet book page at its real size. Shapes are shown in their colors.
4Library — describe new shapes here, and find every shape you've made.
5Preview, Save and Send to download — see the page in felt, save your book, and get your cut files.

Making is free. Making shapes, editing them, breaking them into parts and arranging pages costs nothing. You only pay when you download, and only once per main shape. A wolf broken into 10 parts is still one shape. See section 9.

Tip: make the pieces, put the page together yourself. Use the designer to build the individual elements of your story book — the characters, animals, trees and props. Then stitch or glue the story pages yourself, using the pieces you made. In practice this is much easier than trying to build the entire page in the designer.

Check the page size first. Pieces are cut at exactly the size they have on the page. If the designer page is bigger than your real book page, it's easy to size things up to fill it, and some pieces then come out too big. Make the page the size your element needs to fit, and the cut pieces will match.

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2. Your designs (books and pages)

Each design is a book. A book has up to 10 pages. You'll find all your books on the Jobs page, under Your designs.

The Your designs card on the Jobs page, listing the book Little Red Riding Hood with 2 pages, its last-edited time, and Edit and Delete buttons; the New design button is highlighted. — Your designs, on the Jobs page.

New design starts a fresh, empty book.
Edit opens a book in the designer, just as you left it.
Delete removes the book and its pages. The shapes in your library stay.

The book bar

1Book name — click and type a name. Press Enter to keep it.
2Page picker — jump between the pages of this book.
3New page — adds the next page (Page 2, Page 3…). A book can hold 10 pages.
–Delete page (the page icon with a minus, next to New page) — removes the page you're on, after asking. Its shapes stay in your library. Delete the last page and you get a fresh, empty Page 1.
4Save — keeps the name and makes sure everything has landed. Your book then waits for you in the Jobs list.

Everything saves as you go. Each move, resize and color change is saved straight away. You can close the tab, log out, or come back next week. Save is there for peace of mind and to name your book.

Page size

New pages are 300 × 300 mm. To change that, click the ruler button next to the page name, above the page.

The Page size box with a saved size called Felt square board selected, Width 180 and Height 150 mm with a swap button between them, a name box, and Save size and Remove buttons.

Pick a size from the list: square, a 12 × 12 in or 12 × 24 in cutting mat, A4, A3 or US Letter.
Or pick Custom size and type your own width and height in millimetres (50 to 1000 mm).
Click the swap arrows to turn the page between portrait and landscape.
To keep a size for next time, type a name for it and click Save size. It appears at the top of the list under Your sizes. Pick it and click Remove to take it off the list.
Click Apply. The view then zooms to fit: the whole page is centred and made as big as your window allows, so you can see all of it at once. Zoom in again with the + button when you want to work on a detail; the fit page button brings the whole page back into view at any time.

Saved sizes stay in this browser only. They're kept in your browser's own storage, not in your account, so each browser and device has its own list: sizes saved on your computer won't show on your phone, or in a different browser on the same computer. Clearing your browser data, or a private/incognito window, removes them. Your pages themselves always keep their size, wherever you open them.

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3. Making shapes

Describe the shape you want in plain words. The designer draws it as a cuttable felt shape and puts it in your library.

The describe box with the text A little red squirrel sitting up and holding an acorn, bushy tail curled behind, a counter reading 14 / 100 words, and the blue Generate button.

1Describe box — type what you'd like. The box grows as you write.
2Word counter — up to 100 words. Short and clear works best.
3Generate — makes the shape. Or press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac).

The new shape shows up at the end of your library with a pending label while it's being made. It usually takes under a minute. You can keep working while you wait.

The bottom of the library, where a new card with the squirrel description and a PENDING label is highlighted below the Honey Jar shape. — A shape being made. It turns into a normal library card when it's ready.

Tip: describe one simple object, its pose and any details you want cut out. "A sleeping cat curled in a ball" works better than a whole scene. Color can be changed later with one click.

Holes and windows

Want a peek-through window, eye holes or button holes? Say so: "a starfish with two round eye holes", "a house with a window". The designer cuts real openings into the shape (at least 3 mm across, so they can be cut from felt) — even small lacing holes along a shoe. Put buttons, a picture or see-through mesh behind them. Without the words hole, window or opening, drawn details like eyes stay part of the solid shape.

Basic shapes (free, no AI)

For plain pieces — a sand strip, a sky, a sun, a heart — open Basic shape under the describe box, pick rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle, oval, triangle, heart, star or cloud, type the width and height in mm and click Add. It's ready at once, at exactly that size.

Letters and numbers (free, no AI)

For a name page or a counting page, type the word in the row under the basic shapes — letters A–Z, numbers 0–9, & and – — pick a font (rounded, playful, bold, chunky, bubbly or clean; all chunky enough to cut), set the letter height in mm and click Add letters. Each character becomes its own chunky, rounded felt shape (the holes in A, B, O and 8 are cut out), all at the same height so they line up, and the whole word is placed on the page as a row. Move or recolor each letter like any other piece.

Story ideas

Not sure what to make? Click Story ideas at the left of the tool bar. Pick a fairy tale or fable, or write your own story, and get a list of shape ideas for it.

The Start from a story window, step 1 Choose a story, with The Three Little Pigs picked in the fable list and an empty box to write your own story. — Step 1: choose a fable, or write your own story.

Choose a fable from the list, or write your own story in the box. Click Next.
Wait a moment while ideas are thought up.
Tick the shapes you'd like. Select all and None help with long lists.
Click Make … shapes. Each one is made and dropped into your library.

Step 3 Pick shapes for The Three Little Pigs: idea cards for Straw House, Stick House, Brick House and Little Pig are ticked, each with a short description and a color dot; the button reads Make 4 shapes. — Step 3: each idea card has a name, a short description and a color.

Step 4 Make shapes: a progress bar reading 0 of 4 done, with Straw House and Stick House marked making and Brick House and Little Pig marked waiting. — Step 4: a few shapes are made at a time; the rest wait their turn.

Tip: you don't have to watch. Click Close — keep making in the background and carry on. The Story ideas button shows a little counter while shapes are still being made.

Daily AI limit. Making shapes, story ideas, finding parts, splitting and photo previews are free, but there's a limit of 20 AI jobs per day per account. It resets each day. A job that fails still counts, so don't click Generate over and over if something goes wrong — wait a moment and try once more.

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4. Your library

Every shape you make lives in your library, on the right. Library shapes can be used in any book, on any page, as often as you like.

The library with Little Cottage, Wolf, Red Hooded Cape and Woven Basket cards; the Red Hooded Cape card has numbered badges on its picture, name, felt badge, color dot, info button and bin button.

1Picture — grab here and drag the shape onto the page.
2Name — click the name to rename it. Press Enter to keep, Esc to cancel.
3Material — felt, cotton, ribbon, velcro and so on.
4Color dot — click to choose the shape's color.
5Details (i) — set the material and a short note on what the piece does.
6Bin — deletes the shape from your library. It also comes off every page it's placed on, so you'll be asked first.

Tidying up lots of shapes? Click Select above the library: tick the shapes you no longer want (or All), then Delete selected. Clear library deletes every shape at once — it asks first and can't be undone. Downloads you already sent stay safe in your Jobs.

Choosing a color

The Choose a color window: a grid of felt color squares with the current red one outlined, and a + Add color button at the bottom.

Click the color dot on a library card.
Click a color square. The shape changes color in the library and everywhere it's placed.
Need a color that's not there? Click + Add color.

Why it matters: when you download, pieces are grouped by color, so each color of felt gets its own cut sheet.

Material and description

The Shape details window for Red Hooded Cape, with Material set to felt and the note Velcro at the neck so it comes off, and a 34 / 200 counter.

Click the (i) button to open Shape details. Pick the material and, if you like, write a short note on what the piece does, up to 200 letters. For example: "Velcro at the neck so it comes off" or "rope attached to the keys used to unlock the door". Notes show under the shape's name and on the page preview, so you remember how the page works.

Renaming

A library card where the name has turned into a text box reading Riding Hood cape, ready to edit.

Click a shape's name and type. Names show in your download, so clear names help later.

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5. Placing and arranging

Put a shape on the page

A dashed pink arrow showing the Wolf card being dragged from the library onto the page, where a faded wolf shows where it will land. — Drag a shape from the library and drop it on the page.

While you drag, the shape is shown at its true size on the page, so you can see how big it will be before you let go. Drop the same shape as many times as you like.

Move, resize and rotate

The selected cottage with an orange frame, a round handle above the top edge (1), a square handle at the bottom-right corner (2), and the middle of the shape (3).

1Top round handle — drag to rotate. Hold Shift to snap to neat 15° steps.
2Corner square handle — drag to make it bigger or smaller.
3The shape itself — drag to move it.

The wolf being rotated with Shift held, tilted at a neat 45 degree angle. — Rotating with `Shift` held snaps to 15° steps.

The tool bar shows the name of what you've selected.

Select several shapes

Hold Shift or Ctrl and click shapes to add them to the selection.
Or press on an empty part of the page and drag a box around them.

A pale yellow selection box being dragged around the two purple flowers at the bottom of the page. — Drag a box from an empty spot.

The two flowers grouped, with a faint frame around both labelled Group · 2 parts. — After grouping: a faint "Group · 2 parts" frame.

Work on one shape inside a group. When a group is selected, a Group panel drops down under the zoom buttons, listing every shape in it. Click one to select just that shape — move it, recolor it, mirror it or change it with AI on its own — then click Whole group to pick them all up together again.

The tool bar

1Undo / Redo — take back the last moves. See below.
2Add a feature / Break into parts — AI edits, see section 6.
3Bring forward, Send backward, Bring to front, Send to back — which shape sits on top when they overlap.
4Mirror (left–right, H) and Flip (upside down, V).
5Group / Ungroup — glue selected shapes together so they move as one, or let them go again.
6Attachment points — see section 7.
7Delete — removes the selected shapes from the page (or press Delete). They stay in your library.

Mirror and flip

The wolf facing right, an arrow marked H, and the same wolf mirrored to face left. — Press `H` to mirror. The cut file is mirrored too.

Mirror is handy for pairs: two birds facing each other, left and right shoes. Select a shape (or several) and press H to mirror left–right, or V to flip upside down. A mirrored shape is cut mirrored, exactly as you see it.

Undo and redo

Moved something by mistake? Press Ctrl+Z to undo. Redo with Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y (use Cmd on a Mac). Undo remembers your last 5 steps, and only covers placing: moving, resizing, rotating, mirroring and arranging. It doesn't bring back deleted shapes or undo color changes.

Zoom and the side panel

The bar above the page with numbered badges: page size (1), zoom out (2), zoom in (3), fit page to view (4) and hide panel (5).

1Page size — see section 2.
2Zoom out
3Zoom in — you can also hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel over the page.
4Fit — shows the whole page again.
5Hide panel — slides the library away so the page gets more room. While it's hidden, a « Library tab sits on the right edge of the window: click it to slide the panel back.

The designer with the library panel hidden, so the page fills the whole width; the show panel button at the top right is highlighted. — With the panel hidden, the page gets the whole screen.

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6. AI edits: add a feature, break into parts

Select a shape on the page first. Then use the two AI buttons in the tool bar.

The tool bar with the Wolf selected and two numbered buttons: add a feature (1) and break into parts (2).

1Add a feature — type what to add, for example "a bow tie" or "a scarf". A new version of the shape appears in your library. The original stays as it was.
2Break into parts — cut one shape into separate pieces, each in its own color. Great for appliqué: a wolf with a different-colored head, body, legs and tail.

Change with AI: googly eyes, zips, buttons…

The sparkle button next to Break into parts lets you tell the AI what to add to the selected shape, in your own words — for example "add googly eyes and a zipper mouth".

The Change with AI window for a wolf: the wolf picture with dotted boxes on its head, and a list of suggestions — two googly eyes and a zipper mouth set to Notion, not cut, and a pink felt nose set to Felt, cut it.

1Select the shape, click the sparkle button and type what should change. Click Suggest changes.
2The AI lists what it would add and shows where. Untick anything you don't want.
3For each one choose Felt — cut it (it becomes a real shape you can cut), Notion — not cut (googly eyes, zips, buttons, bells…) or Filling — inside (stuffing, crinkle film, a cardboard stiffener…).
4Click Add. Notions appear straight away as dotted stand-ins; felt pieces appear on the shape when they're ready. Everything is grouped with the shape.

Fillings go inside. Ask for something like "puffed up with cotton inside" and it becomes a filling of that shape: nothing new appears on the page, the shape shows a filled badge, the preview draws it padded and puffy, and the Materials list says what to buy (e.g. cotton stuffing (inside cow body)). See or remove fillings with the shape's (i) details button.

Notions are never cut or charged. They show on the page, look real in the Preview, and are listed under Also needed (not cut) in the Materials list so you know what to buy. Felt additions belong to the shape they were added to, so they don't cost an extra credit.

Break into parts, step by step

Select the shape on the page and click Break into parts.
Find parts: the designer looks at your shape and suggests parts.
Pick parts: each suggested part has a blue box on the picture. Untick any you don't want cut apart.
Click Split into … parts and wait a few seconds.
Click Done. Your shape on the page is swapped for its parts, put together just like before.

The Break into parts window on step 1 Find parts, showing Wolf and the message Looking at your shape. — Step 1: looking for parts.

Step 2 Pick parts: an outline of the wolf with blue boxes over the head and neck, body, tail, hind legs and front legs, and a ticked list of those five parts; the button reads Split into 5 parts. — Step 2: the blue boxes show roughly where each part is.

Step 3 Split: Made 5 parts, listing Wolf front legs, hind legs, tail, body, and head and neck, with a Done button. — Step 3: the parts are made.

The wolf on the page now made of five colored parts (red head, blue body, yellow tail, green and purple legs) inside a frame labelled Group · 5 parts. — On the page: the parts, grouped, each in its own color.

The parts arrive grouped, so the wolf still moves as one. To move a part on its own, select the group and click Ungroup. Each part also lands in your library, so you can change its color there.

Size limits. Tiny pieces are hard to cut and sew, so:

A shape has to be at least 30 mm on its longest side to be broken into parts. Smaller shapes have the button greyed out.
Any part narrower than 8 mm is joined onto its neighbour instead of being cut on its own. The wizard tells you which parts were merged.

Tip: make the shape bigger on the page first if it's too small to split, or pick fewer, bigger parts.

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7. Attachment points

Quiet books are full of things that attach: a key on a rope, a cape with a velcro tab, an apple tied to a basket with ribbon. An attachment point is a little pin that marks where something joins, with a short label so you remember what goes there.

The four attachment point buttons with numbers: attach mode (1), label point (2), clear point (3) and show or hide points (4).

1Attach mode — select a shape, click this, then click the spot on the shape.
2Label point — give it a short label (up to 40 letters), like "ribbon to the apple".
3Clear point — removes the point from the selected shape.
4Show / hide points — hide them while you arrange, show them again later.

Page 2 of the book: a red cape with a pink pin labelled velcro tab near the neck, and a selected brown basket with a pin labelled ribbon to the apple on its handle. — Pins on the page, each with its label.

Each shape on the page can have one point. In the preview they show as little brass pins with their labels (see the next section).

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8. Preview your page

Click Preview in the top bar to see the page as a finished felt page.

The Page preview window with two pictures side by side: on the left a felt-textured mockup of the cottage page with stitched edges and the wolf in colored parts, and on the right an AI photo of the same page sewn in felt, where the cottage door is shown open; a Download button is highlighted. — Left: the free mockup. Right: the AI photo preview, an "artist's impression".

The mockup appears straight away and is always free. It's the exact layout: felt texture, stitch lines, your colors, attachment pins and a numbered list of your shape notes.
Want to imagine the finished page? Click Make photo preview (AI). It takes about a minute and draws a photo-style picture of the page.
Click Download to keep the photo. We also keep the last photo of each page: open the preview again and it's there straight away. While the page hasn't changed, the button stays greyed out (the photo is already made); change the page and you can make a new one.

Good to know: the photo preview is an artist's impression. The layout may differ a little, and it may add touches like an open door. Your cut files always follow the page exactly as you arranged it. The photo preview uses one of today's AI jobs but no credits.

The mockup of page 2: a red cape with a brass pin labelled velcro tab, an apple, a honey jar and a basket with a brass pin labelled ribbon to the apple, and a legend listing 1. Red Hooded Cape - Velcro at the neck so it comes off and 2. Woven Basket - Pocket - the apple tucks inside. — Attachment points become brass pins; shape notes become a numbered list.

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9. Send to download and paying

Click Send to download. Every page of the book that has shapes on it is sent.
Wait a few seconds while the cut files are prepared. You're then taken to the download screen.
Click Download, choose how to group your files (by color, by page or by pattern piece), and tick what you want.
Click Download again. If you need more credits, the button says Buy credits instead.

The download screen for the sent book, showing each piece in a colored box labelled with its name and color, with the Download button highlighted at the top. — The download screen shows every piece, labelled with its name and color.

The Download window grouped by Pattern with 25 free credits this month: Pine Tree, Forest Flower, Little Cottage, Apple and Honey Jar are free; Wolf with 5 pieces needs credit and is highlighted; the free note reads 25 free left this month and the total reads Cost: 15 credits; below, a list shows Red Hooded Cape, Wolf and Woven Basket at 5 credits each and explains you pay once per object and all its pieces are included. — The wolf has 5 pieces but counts as one shape: 5 credits. The month's 25 free credits cover the first five shapes.

How paying works

Pay once per main shape: 5 credits. A wolf broken into 10 parts is still one shape, so it's 5 credits. Added features and parts belong to the shape they came from. The same shape placed twice counts once. An average 30-shape book is about 150 credits — one $5 pack.
Free credits every month. Your account gets 25 free credits each month (shared with PDF pattern downloads) — enough for 5 shapes. The download window shows how many are left. Unused ones don't carry over.
Paid once, free forever. Once you've paid for a shape, you can download it again for free: in another book, another color, another size, even after breaking it into more parts.
Nothing to pay for practice. Making, editing, splitting, previewing and sending to download are all free. You only pay when you actually download.

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10. Quick reference and FAQ

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys	What it does
`Ctrl`+`Enter` / `Cmd`+`Enter`	Generate the shape you've described
`Ctrl`+`A`	Select every shape on the page
`Delete`	Remove the selected shapes from the page
`Ctrl`+`A`, then `Delete`	Clear the whole page (your library keeps the shapes)
`H`	Mirror the selection left–right
`V`	Flip the selection upside down
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Undo the last move (up to 5 steps)
`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`Z` or `Ctrl`+`Y`	Redo
`Shift`-click or `Ctrl`-click	Add a shape to the selection
Drag on an empty spot	Draw a box to select several shapes
`Shift` while rotating	Snap to 15° steps
`Ctrl` + mouse wheel	Zoom in and out on the page
`Enter` / `Esc` while renaming	Keep / cancel the new name

On a Mac, use Cmd wherever it says Ctrl.

Questions

Why is Generate greyed out?

Your description is over 100 words. Trim it down and the button wakes up again. It's also briefly greyed while another AI job you started is getting going.

Why can't I break this shape into parts?

First select the shape on the page. If the button is still greyed, the shape is smaller than 30 mm on its longest side, or it's still being made. Make it bigger, or wait until it's ready.

Why did some of my parts merge together?

Parts narrower than 8 mm are too fiddly to cut and sew, so they're joined to the part next to them. Choose fewer, bigger parts if you want them separate.

Where did my design go?

Go to the Jobs page and look under Your designs. Click Edit to open it. Opening the designer on its own takes you to the book you edited most recently.

Do I lose my work if I log out?

No. Everything saves as you go, straight away. Log back in and pick it up from Your designs.

I hit the daily limit. Now what?

You can still arrange, recolor, preview the mockup and download. New AI jobs (making shapes, story ideas, splitting, photo previews) open up again tomorrow.

If I delete a shape from the page, is it gone?

No, it's still in your library. Only the bin button on the library card deletes the shape itself.