Single Line Engraving Fonts - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly šŸ¤”

Glowforge Tips and Tricks
12

Reminds me of a site I saw a while back.
http://imajeenyus.com/computer/20150110_single_line_fonts/index.shtml#cambam

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13

I tested the CamBam fonts - they are not true single line. :neutral_face:
(There are places in some letters where they overlap or are doubled up. Not all of them, but enough to change the look of some of the letters. Although CamBam_9 is a nice shape that I might use anyway.)

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14

I liked his list and compatibility descriptions for each font there. (This one is good for Rhino, but not good for illustrator etc.)

Thus far CNC Vector has been the been my goto for illustrator for now thanks to that list.

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15

Updated link to the SDStroke font from the imajeenyus.com site:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://dp48069596.lolipop.jp/sd/inkscape_script.html&prev=search

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16

In Sketch, I converted font to outlines then added the smallest stroke with no fill and it worked fine. Havenā€™t tried in Illustrator but would think itā€™d work the same. Basically just donā€™t expand the stoke. Am I missing the point? Scoring was an option on the Sketch SVG.

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17

Yes, that can work if you are willing to accept outlining the text, and donā€™t mind some overburn at the turns. (It actually works for all text, in all drawing programs.)

Single line fonts are just a special subset created from a single line instead of a filled shape.

Totally up to the designer though in either case. :slightly_smiling_face:

18

Gotcha. Sounds like single line fonts are useful since you can keep them as editable text and not have to convert to outlines.

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19

Interesting. I tried to duplicate (I think) the same test run with just 12 pt text to get a sample piece of text styles to have for reference. When I try to get my GF to open the file it hangs up in the rendering phase and times out.

20

Iā€™ve noticed that the gfui doesnā€™t like Inkscape groups too much, but if you remove the groups, select the paths, and then do path>combine (I think :sweat_smile:), then it works fine for me. I shared the file for that pic on GitHub and Instagram, but :phone: linking is hard :relieved:

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21

That worked! Rendered fairly quick!

TY :slight_smile:

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22

The Hershey plugin is more than that one font - it knows how to take a bunch of vector fonts designed by a guy named Hershey and use them in Inkscape for engraves. Itā€™s intended for use on the Eggbot, but thereā€™s no reason that the results couldnā€™t be used on a GlowForge for scoring fonts.

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/hershey-text-an-inkscape-extension-for-engraving-fonts/

I love how the open source community solves problems.

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23

I have not seen anyone here who uses it, but the tool ā€œSketchā€ for OSX (https://www.sketchapp.com) has a simple tool

12%20PM
12%20PM804Ɨ621 29.8 KB
56%20PM 20%20PM
To convert any font into an outline. Some fonts are better than others for vector engrave, but I have been using this tool successfully inn my cuts.

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24

Anything I can find thatā€™s a) Free and b) runs on a Mac is a good thing!

25

It is Mac, it is NOT free :frowning: but it is a good value, at around $100 USD (Last time I got it)

26

I use Sketch for most work. Great app for Mac that, for me at least, does about 90% of what I used to to in Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop. Sketch has inherited the forgotten Adobe Fireworks user base.

27

It seems like the AI script I had been using for Single Line Fonts stopped working on newer versions of CC. Thankfully I came across this page with its Inline Text Generator which seems to work pretty well, and gives more font options then the script used to. Iā€™ve seen this site linked here in the forum for box-making, but not for OLF / SLF engraving fonts.

https://www.templatemaker.nl/singlelinetext/

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28

Nice! That oneā€™s nice.
I use this one too: Text2Vector

Although lately Iā€™ve been relying on cuttle.xyz, which has pretty much perfect support for single line fonts, in a tool that lets you do normal layout like a design tool.

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29

Here is a site that sells all kinds of things. The link is for the results on single line fonts search. Sign up and get notifications when the have specials. I am on a dollar for a month special/unlimited downloads. Just remember to cancel before the end of the month.

https://www.creativefabrica.com/search/?refinementList[type][0]=Fonts&query=Single%20line%20fonts

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30

Have you found any of these fonts able to work in Illustrator? Or Inkscape? And produce true single-line shapes?

When I dug into this a bit it seemed like it was easy to find tons of fonts that are stylistically single linesā€¦ but when cutting or scoring are not really a single line.

And while I did find some true single line fonts, it seems like they usually donā€™t really work properly in Illustrator or Inkscape.

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31

Couldnā€™t tell you. I havenā€™t used those. Iā€™m Too cheap for Adobe.

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