Dumb Font(?) Question

I just received a spec from the local conservation folks for a sign which has me scratching my (balding) head. They want “Groton Conservation Commission” in 3 in. letters on a 48" board. Played with this a little in Vcarve and no matter the font and how much I kern it I don’t see any way to get this on a 48" board. When the sun has fully risen I am going over to measure one of their signs but I must be missing something obvious?

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I use Aspire, but I think the tools are the same… draw a 48" x 3" box, select the text tool with the box around it. Set the margins to none, it will put your text in the box. Stretch the letters vertically and horizontally and the text will fill the box.

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The agony of a signpainter — folks just don’t understand how letterforms of a specified size fit into a given area.

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That’s interesting. Completely different results using a 3" bounding box vs asking for 3" high letters in regular text tool. Is there an explanation for the difference between the two tools operate? (Its just easier to remember if I understand how they work)

Carbide Create measures the current letter/text selection.

Try comparing the dimensions it reports for a . vs. an X, or an x versus a j or l (as a single character / text string / object)

Probably easier to use Inkscape, convert to paths, save as an SVG and import that.

The regular text tool is good for making notes on your drawings when size and shape don’t matter because they’re not going to be carved anyway. Always use the bounding box text tool for actual text you want to carve. I believe that’s the intention of the two different tools. The bounding box text tool has so many more options for configuration. I also recommending using the layers function to put notes and a different one for carving text, so you can turn it on/off easily to avoid confusion.

BTW, if you haven’t already, learning how to use layers in vcarve is the most useful tool at your disposal. It makes complicated designs easier to understand and you can select all the vectors in a layer when generating a toolpath. I’ve done double sided projects with 7 tool changes that I don’t think I would have been able to keep track of without layers.

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