When subjected to in-plane loading, carbon-fiber laminates experience diffuse damage and transverse cracking, two major mechanisms of degradation. Here, we investigate the effect of pre-existing diffuse damage on the evolution of transverse cracking. We shear-loaded carbon fiber-epoxy pre-preg samples at various load levels to generate controlled configurations of diffuse damage. We then transversely loaded these samples while monitoring the multiplication of cracking by X-ray radiography. We found that diffuse damage has a great effect on the transverse cracking process. We derived a modified effective transverse cracking toughness measure, which enabled a better definition of coupled transverse cracking/diffuse damage in advanced computational models for damage prediction. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.