do you mean outlines?
No the forge does not accept outlines, nor text in an SVG, unless you convert the text to paths. If it’s a path with a white fill, and the background is black, it should ‘engrave’ the black and leave the white alone.
it has always worked for me when I click “Type > Create Outlines” and then I just save as svg
I suppose illustrator ‘outlines’ is the same as inkscape ‘paths’?
most likely
I’m not quite sure about how Illustrator handles something like this. If it is kept as a vector and saved as an svg, a white filled object will still be engraved if it is kept as a vector. Or does Illustrator automatically delete the fill from the text? A white filled object would not be engraved only if it was saved as a raster, or am I missing something.
For engraving vector fills, any color at all, including white, will translate as an engrave. That doesn’t happen for a raster image though, white is ignored, so the easiest way to deal with text, which usually has a multiple compound path situation, is to just place the white text in front of the black background, select both and then rasterize it. It creates exactly the engraving effect that you want.
The vector alternative is to make sure that the white areas are subtracted from the black, and that can be tricky to do and takes a lot longer.
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it tries to engrave like it is an object, but you can set to ignore cause it is a different color to the black
I would go about it like so (I know there a better way but why fix something not broke)
make rectangle in black
create text in white
Type > Create Outlines
place where you want
rasterize
image trace on default (only default if you want plain black and white)
save as svg and print
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if you feel like getting rid of the white being seen as an object, you can then expand > ungroup > delete white area
Thanks everyone! The rasterize was the key 
Thanks again!
edz
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You need to either rasterize (as mentioned) or use the pathfinder tool to subtract the text out of the rectangle, making a compound path.
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Agreed. This works for me in AI as well as the equivalent op in AD.
Going from vector to raster and then back vector would be…odd.
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I couldn’t get this to work. I had a black rectangle and white text. I made sure the text was “arranged” to front and then tried the minus front function. The effect was to have all of the letters but the first to disappear and where the others disappeared, there were no “holes” where the letters had been…
edz
That is because when you use Illustrator’s Minus Front function on two pieces out of several, the background moves forward in front of the other bits and you have to send it to the back again before the next removal…over and over and over again. You can usually only remove one piece at a time, you can’t use Groups reliably with the Minus Front function. Compound paths do generally work.
Rasterizing is so much easier and works just as well. 
Text is a bit of a pain in AI as you and everybody else above have noted. Just in case you didn’t get the answer to your question that you wanted here is a fairly quick way to get a vector you can put right into the GFUI.
With most objects you can just overlap paths, hit minus front and be left with a compound path.
With text you have 2 extra steps.
- Create your text and rectangle
- Select the text, then Create Outlines (extra step 1)
2A. Hit Control-8 to make a Compound Path (extra step 2)
- Select everything and hit Minus Front. That should leave you with something like below (a group with a Compound Path and a Path in this case because of the “e”)
Now you can just select what is left, hit CNTL-C (on PC), go to the GFUI and hit CNTL-V to paste (works great in Chrome). That gives you all the benefits of having a vector for resizing, rotating, changing your mind and going from engrave to score or cut, etc.
If you want, you can save as a SVG also and import in the “normal” way.
Have fun.
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Draw your black rectangle
Type your text
Open the pathfinder palette
Select your text and rectangle all together
Don’t click “minus front”… hold option (on Mac) and then click minus front. That will create a compound path with the text and rectangle
Go to Object > Expand Appearance
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One extra (optional) step missing:
If your text has any characters overlapping (as most script fonts do), after converting text to outlines, use the Pathfinder Unite command. Otherwise, the overlapping parts will be knocked out of the resulting path.
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