Text for CNC engraving
CAM software wants closed contours and a known scale, and it wants to know which geometry belongs to which letter. The DXF and HPGL exports give it all three, so the lettering can go straight into a toolpath instead of being repaired first.
Text for CNC engravingOne layer per letter
With separate glyphs enabled, each letter lands on its own DXF layer (g0, g1, g2 …). That is what lets you order the cut, pocket some letters and profile others, or drop a glyph without editing geometry — the difference between a drawing you can machine and one you have to rebuild.
Units the machine believes
DXF declares its unit in the file header — millimetres, centimetres or inches — so the drawing arrives at the right size. HPGL cannot declare one, so there the unit scales the geometry instead; the default keeps one geometry unit equal to one millimetre.
Pocketing versus engraved lines
Fill gives the letterform for a pocket or profile cut. Outline gives a band of the stroke width with both of its borders as contours, which suits an engraved groove of a known width better than a centreline your CAM has to offset. Sharp corners are wrapped so the band stays sound at any width, even where the stroke is thicker than the feature it runs along.
Questions
- Are the contours closed?
- Yes, including the counters — the hole in an “o” is emitted as its own closed contour, so CAM resolves it as a hole rather than as another island to cut.
- Can I get a single-line font for V-carving?
- Not directly: the export traces glyph outlines, so a stroke becomes a band with two edges rather than one centreline. For true single-stroke engraving, use a single-line engraving typeface in your CAM software.
- Which format for Fusion 360 or VCarve?
- DXF. It carries the unit header and the per-letter layers, both of which survive the import into Fusion 360, VCarve, Aspire and Vectric’s other tools.