Today I return to the creation of lettering in machine embroidery digitizing and consider one of the easiest ways to create lettering. This is the way - to use the fonts already digitized and built into the software library.
Almost every embroidery editor has a set of the most common already developed fonts and the methods of manipulating them are about the same everywhere.
On the ribbon, under the embroidery digitizing services, select the Lettering tool:
Immediately, an additional Lettering tab appears, allowing you to manage the lettering:
The first block of this tab is Font. Before you start creating the text, you need to select some option in it:
· Digitized Font - ready-made fonts from the library
· True Type Font - converting to embroidery True Type fonts installed on the computer
At the moment I am interested in the first point. Next, I must decide which of the types of fonts available to me I will make the inscription. To do this, I have to select the desired type here:
I also need to indicate the size and whether I want to make the font bold and slanted:
Now I move on to the next Text block:
In the large window, I can write whatever I like from the keyboard. In addition to entering from the keyboard, you can also type text using the Char tool, which displays a list of characters available for use with this type of text.
It should be noted that not all possible characters of embroidery digitizing services here and there is no Russian alphabet here, which is a rather significant drawback. But don't forget that this is a free program.
Cluster of icons allows text to be aligned relative to the edge:
Alignment works when the "A" button is on - show a preview of the typed text on the screen. The small button on the bottom right checks the spelling in several languages, excluding, of course, Russian.
After pressing the Enter key on the keyboard and some thought, the entered inscription appears on the screen:
And you can already carry out some manipulations with it: It can be scaled both proportionally and only in one direction by pulling the container handles in the corners or in the center of the sides - using traditional methods. And if you grab the handle on the right side (I circled it in black), then you can change the width of the inscription, while the letters themselves do not change in size, but the distance between them changes proportionally (kerning).
You can also play around with each letter separately. All letters have their own set of control knobs (small gray arrows):
The arrow in the upper right corner helps to resize the letter proportionally. The center arrow moves the letter vertically up or down. The bottom arrow shifts letters horizontally to the left and right - you can manually adjust the distance between letters (kerning).
When you click the small button at the bottom of the Text block, a window appears:
It has a ton of different settings. Let's consider the blocks.
· Font - through this block the font of the text is changed. The font can be filtered by the developer's recommended size to choose the appropriate one using the Filter tool.
· Text - makes it possible to change the already entered text or enter a new one in the window, align to the edges, select the thread color and adjust the size. All this is very clearly shown with the help of familiar pictograms.
· Spacing - helps to adjust the parameters of the spacing between: A - letters, B - words, C - lines, D - kerning. What these distances are shown in the picture on the right.
· Trim and Locks - adjusts trim and bartack settings. You can specify whether there will be trimming and bartacking after each letter (at letters), after each word (at words). And whether there will be a lock when changing colors (at colors). To do this, you need to click on the scissors and the red-headed pin, which indicates the bartack. If there are bartacks, then you can choose one of the types and make adjustments, if necessary (length, repetitions):
The lowest checkbox in this window removes the transformation if it was made with the font and returns the inscription to its original state.
The same parameters are displayed in the Spacing, Trims, Lock Stitches block so that they can be quickly changed:
The next Stitch Type block allows you to control already embroidery parameters:
Click on the button and get the following window:
you can find all kinds of tools: density, available fill type, compensation, short stitches, split stitches, frames, overlaps, bartacks, etc. All that is needed.
Well, the next block, Arrange, gives an interesting opportunity to lay the inscription along various curves, fit into circles, arches and transform the inscription using all kinds of envelopes:
You can create something like this with the inscription:
Naturally, in this case, the stitches are recalculated with a change in shape.
This is all very cool, but do not forget to check the quality of the fonts from the library. Trust, but, as they say, check.
Write something down and insert guidelines along the baseline to see how well the font is digitized. We set the guides according to the capital letter "x". I wrote about this in a post about font anatomy:
What to look for: are the rounded letters ("c", "o", etc.) enlarged relative to the baseline, is there shape compensation on the horizontal strokes of the letters.
By the way, in addition to standard manipulations such as changes in size, position, embroidery digitizing services parameters, each letter can be edited: changing the angle of inclination of stitches, entry-exit points, its shapes can be changed:
