Silhouette cutters commonly handle vinyl, cardstock and paper, fabric and heat-transfer materials, felt and leather, plus thicker craft materials such as balsa wood, chipboard and foam. Some listings also mention metal plates for embossing.
Some machines use upgraded registration-mark systems (for example, 4-point registration) to align printed designs for cutting, while other models include a built-in scanner to scan a printed image and cut directly from the scanned design.
Options include manual die-cutting and embossing machines, electric smart vinyl and print-and-cut cutters, and models with built-in scanners for scanned-to-cut workflows.
Several electric smart cutters list a working clearance or maximum material thickness of about 3 mm (≈0.1"), while manual die-cut/embossing machines often can cut multiple layers or heavier materials but typically do not specify a numeric thickness.
