Crafts by Carolyn - Free Inkscape Tutorial

Free Inkscape Tutorial - Welded Words Today I thought I would add a quick tutorial on welding words. It was something I got stuck on at first, and it was something I really wanted to do. They are perfect for all sorts of projects and less fiddly than individual letters. Now I am sure that you can do this in various application, but I use Inkscape which is available free and compatible with the CraftRobo - click through and the download bar is at the top of the page: Inkscape I have played about with my settings and have set a grid on my page - but I didn't do this until after I had achieved something for the first time. What you will need to do first is open a new A4 Landscape document, and then change your view by View ---> display mode---> outline
So let's start by choosing a font - click on the T at the top of the page and select the font and size maybe 72 or larger (although you can play about with the size later) and 'set as default', then 'close'. Now - click on the A at the side bar and now you can type text.
type your word completely, then move your cursor to between the first gap in your word, click so that a long line appears, then hold down the alt key and clickthe side arrow - until the letters will start overlapping...do this on each letter:
Once all letters are overlapped - click on the pointer arrow on the top left and click somewhere in your word it will now be selected - it will have a dotted line all around it: Now go to Path--> object to path then go to path --> union they are now welded.
OR this is a bit more involved but gives a more funky effect type your first letter then click with your mouse somewhere else on your document and type your next letter...and so on until all of your letters are there, see image above for the letter c a r o. NOW select your second letter with the pointer arrow by clicking once - you can now move it with your mouse by holding down the left click, move it next to and over lapping your second letter, you can click again on the letter and the arrows around the edge change - click on one of these arrows and you can rotate your letter...so now you can have a word with letters placed at different angles - this works well if you want to weld the dot above an i for instance. Once you have all your letter touching and arranged as you like it, click on the pointer arrow again, take your mouse and click your mouse down and hold and mark around your entire word...it is now selected - it should have a dotted line around it Now go to Path-->object to path then go to path --> union they are now welded My letters seem to get odd lines as you can see here - but it is a display problem and they are fine, I hope that they will go away in the next version.
save your document as an inkscape document first, if you need to change it you will have to use this file, so always save an inkscape version. File --> save as --->. then file--> save as a DXF (Desktop cutting doc) - this is for the Robo in the robo -->File -->load DXF
I do find that Inkscape misbehaves a bit - and have found the following and as yet can't find out how to stop them happening: when opening in the Robo it will often show the images in two colours, it isn't a problem and normally the robo will have both colours set for cutting. You can select the whole lot and change the colour in the Robo. Sometimes if I do lots of things they will come out on top of one and other in the Robo, and they are not easy to move. I just do more than one sheet in inkscape and copy and paste them into one sheet in the Robo. I get stray lines showing in inkscape - but they never show in the Robo Here are a few quick tips I find useful Crtl and A will select everything in Inkscape, and you can then make everything bigger or smaller in the same proportion creating boxes around your work in the Robo can make it easier to remove from the backing sheet and sometimes give you a bonus shape You can select individual items in the Robo and change colour of the outline then --->output settings --->cutting setting-->cutline settings will mean you can slect what colours to cut - or even make some dashed lines for folding rather than cutting. In both Inkscape and Craft Robo you can group things, select them all with your mouse and then click the group box in CR or in Inkscape -->Object -->group - this will keep things in exactly the same relative postion.