How to cut monograms

I’m new to using illustrator/inkscape. I am trying to figure out how to create a Monogram (like a fancy one, not just plain text) to cut out on my glowforge. I am also interested in learning how to cut out words such as Blessed in a cute text on my computer. Any help would be great. Again, I am new to using these programs & of course glowforge! TIA

2 Likes

Welcome! You may find these user-submitted tutorials helpful as you explore your GF:

and especially this one:

6 Likes

Thank you. I appreciate your help. I will read over these and if I have other questions about it I’ll ask here. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

@dwardio gave you plenty of homework but let me add a couple of things I’ve learned about monograms.
You can buy monogram alphabet sets on Etsy for a little bit of nothing that will put you way out in front on doing them. I create a template that makes placement easy peasy.

1 Like

Check out You Tube there are a couple of Videos on how to do split monogram fonts.

1 Like

And one other thing: if you do things with text where the letters overlap a little ( this often happens with script fonts), after converting the text to outlines you will need to do a Pathfunder…Unite (Illustrator) operation on the selected text. Otherwise the area of overlap will not engrave the way you expect.

3 Likes

@markevans36301 What do you mean exactly? I own a embroidery/decal business and have purchased svg files off Etsy for the decal part but I have never used programs such as illustrator and Inkscape to make things. So how would I go about using them in illustrator? I’ve tried saving them to my computer then trying to convert them back to svg because it won’t let me export my library where they are saved as svg files!

@cynd11 like “weld” when using silhouette or other programs like that? I wasn’t sure which to use. I appreciate that! Do I need to save the file as big as I want the glowforge to cut it or can I adjust the size on glowforges program?

1 Like

I’m not an ai person so I’ll speak in general terms about art programs.
I’ve purchased monogram alphabets that are in svg format. Those can be simply be drag and dropped or imported into your program and then positioned.
When you are going to make several monograms that are the same except for the letters and a few other details lay down some lines on a layer that won’t be included in the final product to help you with placing them.

1 Like

I don’t use Silhouette so I can’t be certain, but I suspect that it is indeed the same as “weld.” And yes, you can resize in the Glowforge interface, by dragging a corner after selecting an object. Just be aware that you won’t get exact dimensions on the size other than by comparing to the app’s ruler, so if it needs to be an exact size it’s better to resize in the design program where you have more control.

2 Likes

On youtube, search this guy. “dagubi” He does some amazing things, one of which I tried - the lace. The only negative if you can call it that is that he draws for print, not for laser. So, there are modifications in Illustrator (such as expand) that need to be done afterwards to make the GF happy. This one in particular seems like you would like it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F12mrxkvSDU

do you have any monograms inside of a circle that i may be able to buy?