sizing of letters

[Fred McLean]

Which software are you using Fiona?

[Fiona McCabe]

i have been using craft robo the software that came with my graphtec, i also have corel draw 11 but i am just learning with that, and everything come to think of it!!

[Fred McLean]

CAn’t help with either of them i’m afraid.

F

[Fiona McCabe]

nevermind!!

thank you for looking :lol1:

[Neil Davey]

Hi Fiona, I don’t use Corel either. But, the way I would do this would be either to make your page size correspond to the bumper dimension or draw a rectangle and use that as a reference.

Once you have either of these you can type your wording and resize on screen to fit the bumper, obviously allowing a margin around the lettering.

I use a dedicated signmaking software which makes this type of thing so easy.

Hope this helps.

Neil

[Fiona McCabe]

hi Neil ,thanks for the help, i will try that way

What type of software do you use?

[Neil Davey]

I use Flexisign on the MAC & Omega on the PC.

There’s no reason why you can’t use Corel though.

The main difference is that packages such as Illustrator and Corel are more suited to graphic design and DTP than signmaking.

Though I fear many would disagree 😕

Software such as Flexi, Omega and Signlab are purpose built for signmaking.

Also there are cost issues with the dedicated products but you can upgrade easily.

[Mark Jahn]

Hi Fiona.

It’s worth spending some time playing around with Robo Master Pro that came with your Graphtec. It’s a competent bit of software which you’ll grow out of in due course but whilst learning the ropes it should do you fine.

Corel X3 I believe can be picked up for £60 or so now, which will allow you to do much more with your designs but it’s another learning curve.

[Fiona McCabe]

thanks for the replies,

I seem to be picking things up each time i use the graphtec and learning how to do something different, although i have had quite a few disasters.

will keep trying!!!

[Hugh Potter]

in corel 11 (assuming it’ll be the same as 12 which i use) your desktop has an A4 page shown as std, along the top and sides are numbers – X and Y measurements.

on the left should be a tool box, hover your pointer over the tools and it tells you what they are, this is your basic tool box. within these there are sometimes other options, accessed by clicking on the little triangle in the bottom corner of the tool on show. you’ll just need the basic tools for now.

using the rectangle tool, start in the bottom left of the page (x0y0) left click, hold down, and drag the box to the size you want, ie, along to 800mm to the right, 50mm up, if it’s not exact then simply zoom in (forward scroll on the mouse with your pointer over the area to zoom) and stretch the box as required.

click on the text tool, click in the box, write your text, click back on the pick tool tool and click on the text, there’ll be 6 dots around the text, corners and centres, drag the top right corner to acheive the height you need, it may well be shorter, but this is ok, try not to stretch text but instead, use a font which is naturally a little longer, or, if need be, click on the shape tool and select the text, click and drag the arrow bottom right to spread the letters a little more.

when done, adjust the box so it is slightly bigger than the text, this will give you a weed box and make weeding a world easier. send to cutter by whichever program you use.

that should have you started!

Hugh

ps, check in the corel help files (if you have access to them), a wold of info in there, well worth the membership to be honest, you’ll get loads of tutorials, tips, tricks, etc.

[Fran Hollywood]

Fiona, to help you grasp Corel there are a number of free video tutorials available on you tube and http://www.unleash.com/tomknight/

Good luck

[Fiona McCabe]

Thanks so much for the help,

Hugh, i will have a go tomorrow with Corel and your instructions!!!

and Fran i will have a look at the tutorials

:lol1:

I am an Airbrush Artist , so trying to cut my own graphics is complicated!!

Airbrushing is much simpler 😀

[Graeme Harrold]

quote Hugh Potter:

in corel 11 (assuming it’ll be the same as 12 which i use) your desktop has an A4 page shown as std, along the top and sides are numbers – X and Y measurements.

on the left should be a tool box, hover your pointer over the tools and it tells you what they are, this is your basic tool box. within these there are sometimes other options, accessed by clicking on the little triangle in the bottom corner of the tool on show. you’ll just need the basic tools for now.

using the rectangle tool, start in the bottom left of the page (x0y0) left click, hold down, and drag the box to the size you want, ie, along to 800mm to the right, 50mm up, if it’s not exact then simply zoom in (forward scroll on the mouse with your pointer over the area to zoom) and stretch the box as required.

click on the text tool, click in the box, write your text, click back on the pick tool tool and click on the text, there’ll be 6 dots around the text, corners and centres, drag the top right corner to acheive the height you need, it may well be shorter, but this is ok, try not to stretch text but instead, use a font which is naturally a little longer, or, if need be, click on the shape tool and select the text, click and drag the arrow bottom right to spread the letters a little more.

when done, adjust the box so it is slightly bigger than the text, this will give you a weed box and make weeding a world easier. send to cutter by whichever program you use.

that should have you started!

Hugh

ps, check in the corel help files (if you have access to them), a wold of info in there, well worth the membership to be honest, you’ll get loads of tutorials, tips, tricks, etc.

I just draw the box any size, then use the dimensions boxes in the menu bar to get the exact size. Saves loads of time when trying to control the mouse while watching the size. If using this method, make sure the little padlock symbol is "unlocked". Also works wonders on circles and ovals………

[Peter Normington]

Just a little pointer though,
before making text to fit a box, try and find a font that has the best propotions to fit the box, and use kerning first before stretching, nothing worse than an overstreched font,

Peter

[Hugh Potter]

quote Graeme Harrold:

quote Hugh Potter:

in corel 11 (assuming it’ll be the same as 12 which i use) your desktop has an A4 page shown as std, along the top and sides are numbers – X and Y measurements.

on the left should be a tool box, hover your pointer over the tools and it tells you what they are, this is your basic tool box. within these there are sometimes other options, accessed by clicking on the little triangle in the bottom corner of the tool on show. you’ll just need the basic tools for now.

using the rectangle tool, start in the bottom left of the page (x0y0) left click, hold down, and drag the box to the size you want, ie, along to 800mm to the right, 50mm up, if it’s not exact then simply zoom in (forward scroll on the mouse with your pointer over the area to zoom) and stretch the box as required.

click on the text tool, click in the box, write your text, click back on the pick tool tool and click on the text, there’ll be 6 dots around the text, corners and centres, drag the top right corner to acheive the height you need, it may well be shorter, but this is ok, try not to stretch text but instead, use a font which is naturally a little longer, or, if need be, click on the shape tool and select the text, click and drag the arrow bottom right to spread the letters a little more.

when done, adjust the box so it is slightly bigger than the text, this will give you a weed box and make weeding a world easier. send to cutter by whichever program you use.

that should have you started!

Hugh

ps, check in the corel help files (if you have access to them), a wold of info in there, well worth the membership to be honest, you’ll get loads of tutorials, tips, tricks, etc.

I just draw the box any size, then use the dimensions boxes in the menu bar to get the exact size. Saves loads of time when trying to control the mouse while watching the size. If using this method, make sure the little padlock symbol is “unlocked”. Also works wonders on circles and ovals………

ha, never thought of that, only recently learned to actually look at the x y boxes for an over all measurement, rather than using the measuring tool…. doh!

[Simon Strom]

Before electronic type, when letters were made of cast metal or wood, the general way that a font was measured was from the baseline to the top of the X Cap Height. Most people usually just enter a point size and go about their merry way. I always have to type in a Capital X, convert to outlines, and then measure that. After that I enlarge or shrink so my copy will equal 1" (but you could just as easily set it to 10mm). I do this so I can easily enlarge or shrink the copy throughout a job. So if I called out the copy at 1-11/16", the Cap X Height should equal 1.6875" (and I can enlarge the copy by 168.75% to get that). Most people don’t really need to do this, and sizing arbitrarily or using the preset point sizes will work well enought. I just wanted to point out the correct way to size. The bounding box technically isn’t correct. A good reason for doing this though is because different fonts come out to different heights when you change the point size. Making sure that the X Cap Height is constant between different typefaces will allow you to change from one font to another without (usually) changing you’re margins.

If what I said doesn’t make any sense (it is kind of confusing), you can read some discussion here: http://typophile.com/node/48669 about it.

[Fiona McCabe]

thanks everyone, replies have been very helpful 😀