Need Help

[Barbara Buhse]

I need some help with a project I am doing. I have to engrave off the right side edge of a 24" piece of alder. Its the letter h and I want only the left line of the h to be engraved so I can fit it to another piece with the rest of the h and more words. (The idea was to have the h hide the seam). Anyway, the font is papyrus, and I have added a 16 point black border so the font is much bolder than the original. The first word rasters fine, but the second word, which includes the "h" rasters just the original font, without the thick border. I am pretty sure this has something to do with the fact that the word extends off the page in Corel, (the printable area is 24" x 6", the entire thing will be 47" x 6" after the two pieces are joined) I can't figure out how to get it to raster right. I really don't have any room to print the entire h and then cut it down, my husband has already matched the two ends.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks :)

Barbara

epilog 24... 35 watt

[Gary Shoemake]

Have you tried to tile the project and then do each piece? I do that for large projects that are larger than my bed area.

[Gary Shoemake]

I looked and found the info that I use. You can get it at www.epiloglaser.com/tl_tiling.htm (http://www.epiloglaser.com/tl_tiling.htm). Hope this helps.

[Jerry Allen]

Just another thought, maybe break the word apart (Arrange menu), convert the H to curves (Arrange or Text menu), and crop (Shaping docker, Trim) it with a rectangle. Make a copy of the H and rectangle to do the right and left sides before using the Trim function.

[Barbara Buhse]

I am going to try the tiling thing. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Thank You!

Barbara

[Stephen Beckham]

Barbara,

Not sure if you're up yet or not, but for 2 more cents worth.... I no longer setup my page size per the artwork. I use a default page of 24X12 (Epilog Mini 24) for everything. It allows me to know exactly where I'm placing the item. I then place an actual sized square of my target and place it on the page as needed. It makes your page size equal to your deck size - then move the artwork around - WYSIWYB :rolleyes:

In the attached example, I placed it so that the second half would burn. The first half does nothing to the laser. When ready - pick up the whole thing and move it to the right to burn the first half.

Serves the same purpose as the tiling, but when dealing with two or three, it's more sense than figuring out a process made for 4, 8, 12 or larger numbers...

Hope the poor man's way helps for future projects.

Oh yea - one other advantage - how many items have you ruined because you forgot to change your print driver sizes? If you always use 24 X 12 in both Corel and set it as the default page size in the print driver - all you have to do is adjust power/speed, because WYSIWYB on the page size...

[Stephen Beckham]

WOW - I apologize - I didn't look at the PDF when posted - it cut the other half off of the screen in the PDF...

I hope the explanation was good enough - it not, let me know and I'll remake it and take screen shots instead of trying to export the file.

BTW - the way it exported is the same way the laser will interpret the artwork.

[Barbara Buhse]

Thanks...

I ended up grouping the font and the outline of the font together and converting it to a graphic. Getting it to print off the end was not the real problem, the problem was that the word that was hanging off was losing its thick border. Changing to a graphic worked. The whole thing is 47.5" by 6", and I also have a 24" bed, so it all worked out.

Thanks for the advice everyone, and now I know how to "tile" for future projects.

Barbara