Cutting letters exactly same size…

My Church is wanting large lettering cut in order to create Biblical passages to put on the inside walls of our Church. Can someone please tell me, step-by-step, how to calibrate my GF so that any letter is not 1/4 inch different from others? Also, how to get an image to cut where it is placed, as it shows on my monitor, without it actually cutting 1/4 inch to the left or right? I am using Adobe illustrator on a MAC. Is there a button that starts recalibration? Dang, I’ll be 70 in 2weeks and I am finding it more frustrating when something goes awry while doing things on GF. Your guidance is appreciated. Have a great day, all.

This isn’t a glowforge thing so much as it’s an artwork thing.

The typeface you choose will matter a lot in terms of how large each letter is in relation to each other. Do you have an example of what you’re trying to make? How close ahve you gotten so far?

Glowforge camera view is an approximation, and they don’t promise it to be any more accurate than 1/4". That being said, there is a calibration process which can help improve the camera’s accuracy:

Some people’s camera views are greatly improved after the calibration.

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Create your letters in an outside program like inkscape. You can design them to be exactly the same dimensions. When you are ready to place them on your wood make sure you “set focus” first then place them where you want them to cut.

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You don’t need Inkscape, Illustrator is just as capable if you already have and know it.

The machine will print designs precisely to within 1/1000", less any kerf from the material you are using. There are settings in Illustrator than can affect scaling when you export, they has been covered here dozens of times.

As to location on your material, 1/4" is within spec, but if after using set focus you’d like to see if can be improved, you can run the Calibration procedure listed in the troubleshooting section of the official support pages, linked above.

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As stated above, using the set focus tool will give you alignment well within the 1/4" tolerance. If you want to complete the lid camera calibration, here is the link. Alignment – Glowforge

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You may also find this post extremely helpful - both in cutting your items out - and then getting them installed!

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Thank you, Deirdrebeth. Interesting way of problem solving!

We haven’t seen @mmoyer for a while, but they definitely started off with a bang with that one!

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