Hatching Script Fonts in EZCAD

[Chris DeGerolamo]

Does anyone have a good "routine" for hatching solid a script font in EZCAD? My issue is with letter overlaps: there is always a white void where characters naturally overlap.

TDLR; I had a design for a cast iron skillet with a script font but had to change the font to accommodate for EZCAD's "features".

TIA as always.

[Kev Williams]

I typed this in Commercial Script, which overlaps badly-
First, click on the text to select it-
From here, go to the MODIFY tab, and click on PLASTIC...

wd1.jpg


Depress the left of the weld options, then click on the WELD button.
Leave the 'save source' and 'save target' boxes un-checked (you can mess with them later )
Click the WELD button, and the arrow cursor will look like below, which I hand drew and copied from Corel
since you can't screen-capture the mouse arrows in Windows...
Anyway, touch the arrow to the text, then click the mouse button.

wd2.jpg


You'll end up with a crapload of nodes because this changes the text to curves, so be aware of that,
BUT, it's all welded up nicely, ready to fill

wd3.jpg
If you haven't played with text changed to curves, the reason to be aware is, if you're like me you'll move objects by clicking on the outline of the object. This will still work with curves, but if you click on a node rather than a line between nodes, you'll only move the node. Thing is, the entire text you just welded will be COMBINED rather than GROUPED. When combined you can select the entire line of text- even holes and disconnected outlines- by clicking anywhere on the line of text. But even though it seems to be grouped entity, it's not, because its all editable when combined. To change it TO an actual grouped entity, you need to un-combine it, then re-select it all by 'boxing' it, then GROUP it-- this locks it all as a single entity.

--or just hatch fill it, which automatically groups it

hope this all makes sense-

--FINAL EDIT-- So as to not get yourself into a hair yanking teeth gritting AAAGGHHH!!! moment- COMPLETE YOUR ENTIRE JOB AND LAYOUT IN TEXT FORM until your absolutely sure it's good to go- THEN SAVE THE JOB as designed in text form. ONLY THEN go about welding up your text and hatch filling it- Because once text is changed to curves, you can't change a mis-spelled word or date! You can UNDO and possibly fix any errors, but EzCad only allows so many Undo's-- a saved job can be a life saver!

[Chris DeGerolamo]

I guess this was a "oh duh" moment for me...thanks Kev. And yeah, your total reply made sense.