The Explore, and Explore Air 1 and 2 had a cartridge port you could supposedly stick your unlinked cartridges in and link to your account. That said, I never got the port to work on either my Explore or my Explore Air 2.
The Maker and Maker 3 don't even have the port. And the free-standing cartridge adapter seems to have been discontinued permanently.
As far as I can tell, based on experience with my Explore Air 2, the cartridge adapter wouldn't have done you much good anyway.
Here's the manual way to do it. Note: this doesn't work for any cartridges that have material that is copyrighted by other people or companies, like Marvel, DC, Disney, Martha Stewart, or Anna Griffin. Leave those in the box - if you want to use them with your maker, you'll probably have to buy them as digital image sets. Also know that some are not available that way period. So hang onto your old Expression if you ever want to use those images. Come on, it doesn't take up that much room.
Get all the cartridges you want to link out and line them up on a piece of paper. Call Cricut customer service and tell them you want to link your cartridges. They'll give you a code that you write on the paper, then you take two photographs of the cartridges on that paper. Take one photo with them all turned face up, and another photo that shows them all turned with the serial number up.
The help desk person will tell you to email him or her the photos when you're through. You may have to make certain that the photo files aren't huge. I tried sending them directly from my phone and Cricut's e-mail system wouldn't accept them. I tried reducing them to 800 pixels wide and they worked fine.
The help desk person will then attempt to link all the cartridges you included in your photo (remember, they can't link some of them because of copyright issues). He or she may keep you on the line until it's done, or may just promise to e-mail you back when it's done.
Once your cartridges are all supposedly linked up, go into Design space and make certain they are. From the Canvas view, select "Images" from the left column. Then select "Image Sets," then select "Ownership" then select purchased. Most of the "image sets" you supposedly linked will be in there. But maybe not all. Then open each image set and scroll down to see if the images you like from that cartridge are available.
Why the extra steps? A couple of the digital image sets that have the same name as your cartridges don't have the same content.
Also some of the fonts that you have supposedly linked are actually not available in the digital sets of the same name. Chalkboard's Script font is one of them. So is Don Juan's font, which is ironic, since it's technically a font cartridge.
Figure out which cartridges/image sets or images or fonts are missing and place another phone call to customer service. In some cases, they can't do anything about it, but in some they can, and it doesn't hurt to ask.
Linking Cartridges to your Maker
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Paul
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2021 10:17 am
Re: Linking Cartridges to your Maker
So,
I have got all of my old cartridges "linked" to my account that they would let me link. But I found that two of the "digital cartridges/image sets" were missing important content that was definitely on my cartridges.
The "Happy Hauntings" cartridge holds about 132 images, including a cool 3D haunted house, and two "scary fonts." If you count all of the ligatures, short words, and flourishes included on the cartridge, you get 876. ("Ligatures" are letter combinations that are sometimes turned into one symbol for display purposes, like making "fi" into one character where the top of the "f" curves around and becomes the dot of the eye.)
When Cricut Customer service "linked" that cartridge, the image set that resulted had five images and no fonts. But when I searched on Cricut's web site, it was apparent that I should have got all the images and fonts that were on the cartridge.
After an hour explaining over and over to a Cricut helpdesk person, we learned that, in addition to the complete image set listed above, Cricut has broken out several subsets of the cartridge and made them available separately. So the first customer service person who supposedly "linked" my Happy Hauntings cartridge had simply linked the first subset he found. "We" only learned that after the customer service person had dug through all the Happy Hauntings subsets and finally found the one that advertised 132 images. He added that one to my account and made me happy on that score.
But he couldn't help at all with my other concern - the Script font from the Calkboard Font cartridge is entirely missing.
The Cricut site clearly shows capital A, B, and C from the Script font and claims that " . . . the three fonts include script, extended, and condensed font options. Bonus letters and flourishes for all fonts help your projects look truly hand-drawn."
The customer service person explained "patiently" that the Script font isn't really a font any more, it's a bunch of images. He had me look at the images from the digital set to see all the Script characters there, as though that proved his point. But I explained to him that those images that looked like Script font were really only ligatures, short words, and flourishes. In fact capital A, B, and C, from the Script font are not located anywhere among the long list of such doodads in the digital set.
Finally he decided that I must be right. There is, or should be a Script font, but it's missing. Not only from my computer, but from his system as well. He said he would "report it." I said, how do I follow up? He said to e-mail support@Cricut.com with the ticket number under which I used when I had the Chalkboard Fonts cartridge linked.
So I did. I typed out everything I posted above about the missing script and hit send.
Then I got an e-mail back that said I would have to call customer service before they would open a ticket. They gave me a new ticket number to use when I called them.
So I e-mailed them back and said I had already spent the better part of an hour talking to them about this exact problem.
Then I got an e-mail back that made it clear they considered THAT to be a separate complaint that they wouldn't deal with unless I called them. They sent me a new ticket number.
So I got one of my problems sorted and they are just dodging the other one.
The "takeaway" is that when you have a cartridge linked, especially if they have to link it manually for some reason, you need to go to the "font" or "image set" (or both) and make certain that all of the content that was on your cartridge is in your digital account.
I have got all of my old cartridges "linked" to my account that they would let me link. But I found that two of the "digital cartridges/image sets" were missing important content that was definitely on my cartridges.
The "Happy Hauntings" cartridge holds about 132 images, including a cool 3D haunted house, and two "scary fonts." If you count all of the ligatures, short words, and flourishes included on the cartridge, you get 876. ("Ligatures" are letter combinations that are sometimes turned into one symbol for display purposes, like making "fi" into one character where the top of the "f" curves around and becomes the dot of the eye.)
When Cricut Customer service "linked" that cartridge, the image set that resulted had five images and no fonts. But when I searched on Cricut's web site, it was apparent that I should have got all the images and fonts that were on the cartridge.
After an hour explaining over and over to a Cricut helpdesk person, we learned that, in addition to the complete image set listed above, Cricut has broken out several subsets of the cartridge and made them available separately. So the first customer service person who supposedly "linked" my Happy Hauntings cartridge had simply linked the first subset he found. "We" only learned that after the customer service person had dug through all the Happy Hauntings subsets and finally found the one that advertised 132 images. He added that one to my account and made me happy on that score.
But he couldn't help at all with my other concern - the Script font from the Calkboard Font cartridge is entirely missing.
The Cricut site clearly shows capital A, B, and C from the Script font and claims that " . . . the three fonts include script, extended, and condensed font options. Bonus letters and flourishes for all fonts help your projects look truly hand-drawn."
The customer service person explained "patiently" that the Script font isn't really a font any more, it's a bunch of images. He had me look at the images from the digital set to see all the Script characters there, as though that proved his point. But I explained to him that those images that looked like Script font were really only ligatures, short words, and flourishes. In fact capital A, B, and C, from the Script font are not located anywhere among the long list of such doodads in the digital set.
Finally he decided that I must be right. There is, or should be a Script font, but it's missing. Not only from my computer, but from his system as well. He said he would "report it." I said, how do I follow up? He said to e-mail support@Cricut.com with the ticket number under which I used when I had the Chalkboard Fonts cartridge linked.
So I did. I typed out everything I posted above about the missing script and hit send.
Then I got an e-mail back that said I would have to call customer service before they would open a ticket. They gave me a new ticket number to use when I called them.
So I e-mailed them back and said I had already spent the better part of an hour talking to them about this exact problem.
Then I got an e-mail back that made it clear they considered THAT to be a separate complaint that they wouldn't deal with unless I called them. They sent me a new ticket number.
So I got one of my problems sorted and they are just dodging the other one.
The "takeaway" is that when you have a cartridge linked, especially if they have to link it manually for some reason, you need to go to the "font" or "image set" (or both) and make certain that all of the content that was on your cartridge is in your digital account.
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Paul
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Sat Apr 17, 2021 10:17 am
Re: Linking Cartridges to your Maker
Here's a funny. I have at least two unlinked "Don Juan" cartridges that I got when I picked up old Creates to test with my SCAL setup. When I asked Cricut's customer service to link them they said they did. And the images from the Don Juan cartridges showed up in my account. But the font never did.
I contacted Cricut and asked them to fix that and the person I talked to said they had and it should show up in my account as soon as I got off the phone. It did not, and still hasn't.
When I got a new Explore Air 2, registered to just me alone, I should have been able to get it to link my other unlinked Don Juan cartridge using the little cartridge port that is supposed to be there just for linking. NOTHING happens. The software just sits there waiting for me to hit the "Link Cartridge" button, which I've already hit. Multiple times. This happens with several of my other unlinked cartridges.
The truth is, Don Juan is a dumb font, and if I every really wanted to use it, I could simply download it from the Internet and use it in any of my other programs. But it's exhibit C in my claim that "linking" your unlinked cartridges isn't
I contacted Cricut and asked them to fix that and the person I talked to said they had and it should show up in my account as soon as I got off the phone. It did not, and still hasn't.
When I got a new Explore Air 2, registered to just me alone, I should have been able to get it to link my other unlinked Don Juan cartridge using the little cartridge port that is supposed to be there just for linking. NOTHING happens. The software just sits there waiting for me to hit the "Link Cartridge" button, which I've already hit. Multiple times. This happens with several of my other unlinked cartridges.
The truth is, Don Juan is a dumb font, and if I every really wanted to use it, I could simply download it from the Internet and use it in any of my other programs. But it's exhibit C in my claim that "linking" your unlinked cartridges isn't