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Thread: Rotating Letters

  1. #21
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    Tucson, Arizona
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    2,401

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    Just a suggestion. I cleaned up the lines a little and added a center deco. Also, on the back I changed the recess to a pocket cut using the 1/8" cutting bit. If you like it you are welcome to use it in any way that you like. If not, burn it.

    EDIT: Interestingly, when I opened my own file in Designer 2.05 the IV and V had the same problem even though I had completely removed the numbers and re-created them in 1.187.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Steve

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Poway, CA
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    350

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    I get the text distortion any time the width gets stretched or shrink at a different percentage. I don't think it's a bug, but it is a side effect of the way the software was written. In a typical word editing or graphics program the font height is fixed and the bounding box is stretched to fit. Unfortunately, designer takes the bounding box and mashes the text to fit which causes the distortion if you aren't careful in how you manipulate the bounding box. I'd love to have a way to fix the font height while rotating and editing text. What I usually have to do when editing text to prevent the distortion(as you found)is to delete the original , and create new. Makes it very challenging to rotate or arc text and have different text boxes on the same design have the same text character height and width.

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Panama City, FL
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    217

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    Thanks again for your help guys! Wish (and hope) CW has something in the works to prevent this in future upgrades to 2.xx. May have to wait until 3.xx comes around. I'm still looking on line for a tall narrow font for this project that will avoid the problem.

    Steve - after I sent the mpc, I changed the back to a pocket (using a 1/2" straight and 0.2 max cut depth. I lost the 1/8 bit to a very solid piece of oak earlier this year and have been using a 3/16th bit since.

    And hey, this is my 100th post, only 900 more til senior member status!!! Get the half barrel on ice!!

  4. #24

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    Another way to do this is to use the Arc option in the text tool. It will keep all the numbers the same height. For your clock you may have to do this in two parts, say numerals 9-12 and 1-3 top and 4-8 bottom. You would need to adjust the number of spaces typed in between numerals and also the letter spacing. Designer 2 would have an advantage in that spacing can be varied within the line of text.

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  5. #25
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Poway, CA
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    Dick, I have had a very difficult, if not impossible time trying to get the character heights the same in all the parts when doing this. If the box is the same size but there are different number of characters, or even different characters I always end up with them being slightly different size. Do you have a trick to get them all to the same height other than trial and error?

  6. #26

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    Here are some suggestions when desiring to have multiple text boxes appear in proportion to one another:

    The first key is to only re-size text while in 90-degree orientations. This will simplify things.

    When re-sizing text using the mouse, always re-size by dragging a corner so that the aspect ratio is preserved. Don't stretch the text taller or shorter, or elongate or compress it, by dragging the sides of the text box. If you do, it becomes very difficult to make the next text box with different text match in proportion. You can also use the Size boxes on the toolbar to re-size. Changing one value (e.g. height) will cause the other value (e.g. width) to be adjusted proportionally.

    Note the various heights of text depending upon whether the text contains upper case or letters with extenders such as g and y. For any given font, I might place some sample temporary text and note the resulting text box heights. For example "The", "ax", and "any" in Times New Roman default to .727", .492", and .688" tall. If you re-size any text, use a calculator or spreadsheet to determine the correct size of the various text boxes that you want to be in proportion. For example, if you enlarge "The" by 1.5 times, enlarge "ax" by the same proportion. Re-size the text by typing in the desired height of the text box in the Size height box in the toolbar using the results of your spreadsheet. The length will be adjusted in proportion.

    Rotate the text only after it has been sized. Don't re-size the text after it has been rotated.

    Does that help?

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Poway, CA
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    350

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    Thanks. These are some great ideas for me to try.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Panama City, FL
    Posts
    217

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    DickB - It does help understand how I need to work in Designer and following everyones advice has eliminated the distortion of the text once rotated. Unfortunatly it doesn't appear that there is a way to change both the height and width of the text independant of each other (i.e. it must be constrained). And this is OK if the selected font is has all the characteristics a project requires. But, as in my case, if you need to compress in one direction and stretch in the other direction, most likley you'll end up with some undesirable results. Was really hoping to do this using vectors instead of raster carving everything just to save time. This inability seems to be a short-fall of Designer as I'm able to do this in most other drawing packages I use (Corel, PaintShop Pro, and even Aspire). I only have the trial version of Aspire to play with but it looks like I'll be saving my money to purchase it in the future.

    Thanks again folks for all your help! And I'm not ragging on Designer as it has been a great little program, one just needs to know it's limitations and the work-arounds such as this. And learning the package is just as important as using it to carve the projects.

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Indiana, PA
    Posts
    2,560

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    Quote Originally Posted by tcough3475 View Post
    DickB - It does help understand how I need to work in Designer and following everyones advice has eliminated the distortion of the text once rotated. Unfortunatly it doesn't appear that there is a way to change both the height and width of the text independant of each other (i.e. it must be constrained). And this is OK if the selected font is has all the characteristics a project requires. But, as in my case, if you need to compress in one direction and stretch in the other direction, most likley you'll end up with some undesirable results. Was really hoping to do this using vectors instead of raster carving everything just to save time. This inability seems to be a short-fall of Designer as I'm able to do this in most other drawing packages I use (Corel, PaintShop Pro, and even Aspire). I only have the trial version of Aspire to play with but it looks like I'll be saving my money to purchase it in the future.

    Thanks again folks for all your help! And I'm not ragging on Designer as it has been a great little program, one just needs to know it's limitations and the work-arounds such as this. And learning the package is just as important as using it to carve the projects.
    If you are doing your design work in Corel, just save as an Adobe Illustrator 8.x file from corel and then you can use ai2mpc to convert it for the Carvewright. You will probably also want to convert any text objects to curves before you output. Search the forum for the post with the ai2mpc.zip file. If you cant find it, I can also send it to you. I do also own the dxf importer, but I still find myself using ai2mpc more often because of several features it has that are missing in dxf importer.
    Doug Fletcher

  10. #30

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