I am trying to engrave on the back side of a rose gold acrylic sheet. I am engraving a word on it and for some reason it is not picking up the engraving of the word in glowforge. I feel like there must be a setting I missed in Inkscape and for that reason its not picking it up. Do you know what the reason might be?
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Probably you need to turn the text into vectors by using the object to path command at the top of the list of commands in Path pulldown.
The GFUI does not recognize the various special objects so they usually need to be moved to vectors, You will probably need to make the text all one thing using Combine that is also in the path pulldown so it will engrave properly.
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You will probably need to ungroup the letters first.
Generally:
- Select text
- Path->object to path
- ungroup (control shift g)
- Path->Union
Combine and union are very similar but union is the right one to use here. If any of this is new to you I’d suggest reading the inkscape docs about path editing. It’ll be time well spent.
Union will take a series of concentric circles and make them the outer circle filled in. Difference will be the bottom object with the top object removed from it. Combine will combine all the objects and then sort out what is filled in. If the CTL is held down when selecting for combine it will get all the objects even if five levels deep in different groups,
Not always.
In text, especially cursive, you often have overlapped areas. If you combine them you’ll have a nondestuctively combined path that includes overlapping areas. Union does what you want here: it flattens the paths and merges them into one clean engravable path, eliminating any concerns about overlap.
If you’re using a plain font with cleanly separated letters then combine and union are functionally the same. My method with union works either way, the combine method will bite you in some more complex cases.
Nice trick about reaching into the groups but I find it faster and easier to just ungroup and then union. No mouse work, two keystrokes. Control-shift-g, control-plus. Done.
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As well as filling in the center of Os, Rs, As, etc.
Node editing or just very thoughtful attention to the rules I laid out above works wonders
Nope.
It doesn’t do that. If your text has a fill and no stroke (as is proper and default), and you haven’t added a “break apart” in the middle (which would be silly), you’ll get exactly what you expect here.
Trying the new more precise things people send your way works wonders too… That’s how I learned about the arrange tool from you, after all.
Observez!
Nice simple merged path, no fuss no muss.
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Yep, editable text words are removed from your file when you upload it. I’ve been doing this since the beginning and got bit by this twice recently 
I was engraving pencils with quotes on them and forgot both times to change the text into a vector in Inkscape before uploading.
A nifty trick is to:
- create a new layer
- copy your text
- click on the new layer, then past in place (ctrl+alt+v) the text
- hide the layer
- THEN change the original text to a vector using the Path>Object to Path menu.
That way you save the original if you decide to change the text, but still have the vector for the Glowforge to see. If the Layer is hidden (the eyeball is closed) the GF ignores it ;p
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Or use CorelDraw…set it to save the text as paths in the SVG but it keeps the text editable in the CDR file. Never bitten 
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