Wonky letters?

[Karl Williams]

Won’t G.A or omega run your cutter?

[Chris Wool]

sorry jill can’t see well enough.

corel sizing can be a pain but if converted to curves the the sizes shown are the max x y dimension.

bigger pic taken square on will help

chris

[John Singh]

Can’t think it to be the plotter especially Graphtec

You say you can’t trust Corel for sizing but have you sent from Corel direct to see how letters cut (even if it is the wrong size what do the letters cut like?)

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I will have to try it.
I’d upload a bigger pic but on this part of the forum you can’t add pix and Photobucket won’t let me go bigger.
I know I am doing something wrong.
😳

[John Singh]

Can you get into the sign software forum under Corel
I’m sure it discusses something similar (around Oct 18 thread)

[Jill Marie Welsh]

I will check it out.
The main reason (besides the not trusting sizes) to go to Omega is that when I do an outline in Corel it adds about a million extra nodes.
I did know how to fix that at one time but I have since forgotten.
Sorry for being such an idiot!

[Karl Williams]

I’ve tried it by exporting from coral x3 as ai version 3. Imported to omega
re-sized…imported into coral..no problem. Not that many nodes.
If you generate a small text sample and export it..resize it then export back
this can make the curves go crappy.

[Otto Peltonen]

quote Jillbeans:

when I do an outline in Corel it adds about a million extra nodes.

Making an outline and converting it into curves in corel can be pure pain, but make a contour instead, works much much better.

[Alan Drury]

Hi Jill the picture is not clear enough for me to see the problem I’m afraid but general info as follows:

Sizing, Corel sizes letter in the normal typographical manner ie it takes into account acenders and decenders – fine for printers but a PITA for signmakers who require a 20mm cap to be 20mm. There is a couple of solutions, not necessarily ideal but a workround.
Type your text (Artistic)
Type in another text string (Artistic) a letter H or other letter with no curve.
Size this H to desired cap height using the object size box and note point size.
Change original text to that point size
OR and this applies to X3 and X4, I’m not sure it works with versions before goto http://www.macromonster.com and get the Autosize macro, about $9.99 – £6.50ish. This allows you to draw a line from top to bottom of your text string, then select the line and text, run the macro and type in the desired cap height – and then everything is sized to that.

Outline X3 and X4 uses beziers for contours/outline so the issue of lots of nodes is sorted.

X3 and X4 is a significant improvement over V12 and I would consider an upgrade if you intend to use this as your primary design software. Macromonster now has macros to enable cutting direct from Corel, nesting and power weed or if you prefer Omega export from Draw as AI say V4 – deselect the ‘simulate filled curves and select the ‘export text as curves. This will avoid construction lines through the letters and retain text as text in your Corel document but make it curves when in Omega.

[Robert Lambie]

hi jill
ive temp moved your post to allow picture attachments. not a problem…
ill move it back once we find out how to solve your problem.

please rest assured, it is not your cutter causing this issue. ide bet my bottom dollar its not. :lol1:

i cant help on the software issues as i don’t run any of those mentioned, but what i will say is your process of exporting, importing etc all sounds a bit long winded to me and probably somewhere is corrupting your file.

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Thanks for the temporary move!
That vinyl has since been masked (that’s a whole nother story)
so therefore would not be easy to photograph.
I called the client last night and delayed the job for a few days to get this sorted, even if it means upgrading Corel.
Please remember that as sassy as I am with layouts, etc., I am that stupid when it comes to computers.
I know it’s the import/export at fault, not the plotter.
They were typed small then resized in Omega.
Thanks for helping.

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[Karl Williams]

Sometimes when you export small text in coral to omega the nodes seem to crunch up together and move the vector lines and curves Jill.
The sizing in coral to cut shouldn’t be a problem as as far as I can remember I’ve never had an issue with this.
As Rob said, It won’t be the cutter.

[Graeme Harrold]

Its going to be the export filter messing things up. I use the same process for engraving. Create in Corel, export as an Ai then import back in. The problems I get are paths that were closed are broken into parts, duplicate outlines superimposed etc. Try some different filters e.g. plt or dxf

Or just cut direct from Corel…. :lol1:

[Paul Humble]

I cut from X3 via cutting master 2 and get none of these probs.

[Alan Drury]

Graeme, deselecting ‘simulate complex fills’ should sort that problem.

Jill I have known very small True Type text exported to corrupt in early versions of Draw. I noticed this when doing litho work so it was very small. I have not noticed it with sign work where the letters are not often smaller than 1 inch and I’ve never noticed corruption in X3 or X4. What size are you talking about and I’ll try it.
Alan D

[Tim Painter]

I don’t see working direct from Corel as an Issue at all, I can see all the import / export causing issues and extra work.

Here I’m working with ver 12 and cutting straight to my Roland.
Text converted to curves and outline set to 0.1 point.

Some founts are lousy but I have not seen it as bad as your pic Jill.

Do you cut direct from Corel to the cutter or via a plugin?

[Jill Marie Welsh]

OK the "Straight" pic is typed directly in Corel. Font is Impact.
Size is 1.76" high.
(I forgot to note the length but it’s 24 points on an 8½x11 inch page)
"Imported" pic is the font after being exported as an .ai to Omega and sized to a length of 40". Then imported as an .ai back into Corel.
See the weird edges? This is the file I cut.
I know I am going to have to learn a different way to do this.
An upgrade to X3 is only $50 now, and seems more straightforward (I think) with the sizing. Or should I say the lack of trust I have!
hahaha
I am such a control freak!
I will have to be careful with all my old files if I ever have to cut new jobs from them.
😳
And someone is kindly giving me a Weber tool so that should help with my masking issues.

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[Mike Fear]

Theres something odd happening when its being imported into Omega.

Impact is a pretty smooth font compared to some, and doesnt have many nodes so your letters should have nice smooth curves.

If you type the text you want in Corel, then convert to curves you can scale it to any size ( big or small ) and it wont add any extra nodes to the letters.

Are you exporting from Corel as a vector file ? from your pics it looks like the text has been exported as a bmp, then Omega has re-traced it with some sort of auto trace and made it come out rough.

As long as you export from Corel as a vector, and convert the text to curves before exporting, then you should end up with exactly the same thing in Omega when you import it as a vector.

I would check the settings for your exporting in Corel and importing in Omega to see if there is something that is making it convert it to a bmp somewhere along the way.

[Mike Fear]

Forgot to mention !

If you can cut directly from Corel, do this rather than exporting, re-sizing and importing back.

As long as you make your text, then convert to curves and then resize it, the size will be correct when you cut.

[Simon Clayton]

By the looks the file its being corrupted when importing back into corel, can you not try importing in a different file format. I’m sure this used to happened to me, in AI so moved over to EPS
I can’t remember having sizing problems in 12, the way i used to do it was, if i wanted 1" letters i would draw a 1" box and just enlarge the letter till it matched the box..

[Duncan Wilkie]

We plot directly from Omega to our Graphtec plotter. The drivers come with Omega It’s an awesome combo. You said it was a new plotter, so I take it for granted that it is supported by Omega?

[Alan Drury]

I am fairly certain that the issue is the size of export as 24 point is very small – with a letter size at about an inch (72 point) or preferably bigger and I would expect the curves to be smoother.
Alan D