Help needed to make font vector engravable

[Steve Kelsey]

I am looking for a better way to transform a font into a hairline vector in corel. I want the font to be, if you will, a centerline, which consists of just a vector line for each character. I do not want the outline of the whole character. I am trying to print a fairly small font and when using the outline of the characters there is too much "bleed over" and the results look too sloppy. I do not want to raster the font because of the extra time it takes to do this. Currently, the only method I can come up with is to transform the text into a bitmap and then centerline trace it. The results are less than wonderful. Anyone have any other ideas on how to do this and get nice looking results?

Thanks in advance!

[Doug Griffith]

What you are looking for is a single line font. Creating one from scratch is not a one click process.

Search Sawmill creek for "single line font" and you'll find some previous threads.

[Steve Kelsey]

Ahhh. Thanks, Doug. Appreciate the help.

[Mark Sipes]

If you have access to a rotary engraver, most software has 4-10 single line fonts in there package. The text is then exported out of the program as a .plt and imported into Corel as an vector image. Do it all the time.

Mark

[Mark Sipes]

Did you want some help making this happen? I can give it a try. E-mail me.

[Jiten Patel]

Arrr the holy grail. I wish i could do this with fancy fonts.

There was a post on here not too long ago about a plugin for Inkscape which I think (but dont quote me) did exactly what you are looking for.....I will see if I can find it.

[Mark Sipes]

Hope this is visible..

[Mike Null]

Jit

Please describe what you mean by fancy fonts.

[Jiten Patel]

Mike, I'm talking script fonts, Calligraphy fonts and type like that. Usually used for wedding invitations. Fonts like Edwardian Script, Chopin, Baroque.

It would be great to be able to outline the fonts in Illustrator and then have some sore of algorithm that made a centre line to make the font a single line, rather than having to draw it manually. As you can imagine, on a wedding insert, if i wanted to laser the whole lot, i would have to spend a hell of a lot of time drawing the font, which simply wouldnt be worth the time.

[Richard DiMaggio]

I use the export function in Corel to create a .EPS file, which is a vector file. If you send me an example of the font you want to do, I will try it and return it to see if it is the effect you want.
rj

[Doug Griffith]

...some sore of algorithm that made a centre line to make the font a single line

That might be doable with sans serif typefaces but once serif, script, calligrapic or any other decorative typeface gets thrown in the mix, it will get real unpredictable. Even if it did work, the design ethic of the typeface would be lost because thickness variation would now be consistent.

[David Fairfield]

A font artist could possibly put something together, maybe ask one. They are giving their fonts away for free over on dafont.com, and email contact addresses are listed for some.

[Doug Griffith]

A font artist could possibly put something together, maybe ask one. They are giving their fonts away for free over on dafont.com, and email contact addresses are listed for some.

The issue is single line fonts are not typical closed vectors like other fonts. The idea of a process that converts to outlines and then chokes in to a single line seems like a better idea. Albeit not very easy to do if at all possible.

[David Fairfield]

Yes, I get that. Just suggesting it might be worthwhile to consult with a font artist, to see if its possible to develop something like this

http://www.dafont.com/line-ultralight.font

So that it either types out as single vector lines, or converts to a single line, instead of a closed fill.

[Mike Null]

It might be easier to pick up software like EngravLab which has engraver's single line fonts. You can probably see all the fonts before you buy.

[Mark Sipes]

Went through EngraveLab 6 last night.... Not a whole lot of single line fonts.... Engravelab Laser Pro 7.1 for lasers has less...

Nothing even close to Edwardian Script, Chopin, Baroque......... single line

[andrew zen]

Select words in CorelDraw

convert to curves

add a contour - center

arrange - break contour parts apart

delete original word curves

convert the contour to hairline - red


Do this for all letters in alphabet if you want to prepare in advance.