I’m still waiting for my GF to be delivered (January 2021) so spending the time trying to learn what I can without a machine. Is there anywhere I can look and possibly print out a glossary of terms? People keep speaking of masking, etc and it would be really nice to know what they are talking about instead of guessing. Thank you in advance for your feedback!
I don’t know if we have a glossary. Masking is just a paper tape that you put on your materials to keep off soot as you cut. Glowforge material come pre-masked, but there are lots of posts in here about masking options for things you buy from other sources.
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That makes sense - thank you Christy!!
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Hmm wasn’t there a glossary thread? Let me see.
Aha here’s the glossary:
Also read everything in this:
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It’s not really the same sort of glossary. I mean, I think you can laser something without knowing what ASCWINWOTYTSD means. 
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It’s a wiki, feel free to edit it. The original intent was too narrow? Change the title and start adding general terminology. Silly abbreviations that aren’t broadly relevant? Remove them. Far as I know it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a proper dictionary of terms.
Begun, the edit wars have.
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Nah. I was just giving you a hard time. I don’t think most people will look for a glossary in the first place.
And as quickly as they started, the edit wars have come to an end.
Agreed, I think the thing to do is learn as you go.
@nancies.ventures, to get back to your original question: The entire pile of things you can learn about lasering stuff turns into a mountain pretty quickly. While I applaud your efforts to get informed as quickly as possible, I think it’s best to take it as you go.
Reading the introductory stuff I posted earlier will be great research. Once you have your laser, doing the test prints that Glowforge recommends will get you off on the right foot. After that, it’s a matter of “one step at a time”. Want to learn how to engrave tile? Search for that on the forum and dig in. The next day, maybe you want to engrave acrylic… forum time. What’s this “kerf” thing that everyone’s always on about… you know what to do!
There’s just too much to know all at once. There are new things to learn all the time, it’s a fun process 
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Add to everything said above.
Pick and fall in love with both a raster and a vector software program. There are lots of choices from free to pricey.
This post will give you some ideas.
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I strongly suggest spending this time learning as much as you can about the design program you plan to use.
Second, go through these tutorials, 2, 3, 20 times if you need to so that you fully understand them. Obviously, you can not actually use your laser right now but reading them now will put you so far ahead of the curve.
Third, read everything you can in this forum and stay away from Facebook LOL
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Thank you Pearl, exactly what I’m doing with hopes of understanding since I can’t do hand on yet!
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