hello,

I'm stumbling my way through learning Inkscape for a project I'm doing to create name necklaces for my daughters birthday party. I have created the type for the names and adjusted the kerning so each name will hold together but I am having trouble figuring out how to create holes for stringing the names to chains. Currently my "holes" are circles with a smaller circle inside. I've tried using the union tool and then erasing but it isn't working. Any help gratefully received.

A JPEG of the file is here.
http://www.twitpic.com/123y70

I should also mention that I am using Inkscape on a Mac via X11.

Thanks

Try converting the text object to a path. Then ungroup the result (it is a group of letters). Select the letters an union them. That should get each name as a single path. Then draw your holes as circles, where you want them on the letter shapes. Convert all of them to paths as well, then combine them.

Here is a screen grab showing the steps. I set the fill to colour at the end so you can see how the holes are "cut out":


(oops - missed the dot on the i....)

-Rob A>

ffaat wrote:Try converting the text object to a path. Then ungroup the result (it is a group of letters). Select the letters an union them.

By the way, you can get the same result by omitting the first two steps: just union the text.

I notice that each name has a curly Q on the beginning and ending letter. Could you just put the chain through that?

Very nice work, btw!

Hi,
Thanks for the replies, I had to do a lot of ungrouping and the Break Apart command was crucial, but it worked, the workflow is below, as is a photo of the finished cut pieces.

First ungroup the name until it won't ungroup anymore.
You'll have to ungroup the whole name, then each hole.
Then highlight the whole thing and do Path..Break Apart
Click the name part and use Stroke To Path
Change the fill properties of the name to none and the stroke to 0.1 px.
You'll see now that the name has an inner line and an outer line, go
through and delete all the inner lines.
Now highlight the outer line of a hole and the name and use Path..Union
Once you've got it all set you can group the whole thing again.

http://www.twitpic.com/126543

sas wrote:

ffaat wrote:Try converting the text object to a path. Then ungroup the result (it is a group of letters). Select the letters an union them.

By the way, you can get the same result by omitting the first two steps: just union the text.

Select the text and union it? Handy shortcut!

-Rob A>

Hi,

Nice project - my six year old is salivating now - thanks for that.

I have just gotten access to an epilog laser - but they want me to use coreldraw to manage my art.

I would like to use inkscape - and seeing that you got it to work, I have two questions:

1. What line weight did you use to indicate cutlines? (Looked like .1px?)

2. When you printed to the epilog, did you just print, or did you first have to save as .pdf, and then print (or similar)? I was reading some other threads where users couldnt get the epilog to cut, and the comment was "Inkscape rasterizes the job before sending...." - hence using the .pdf intermediary to avoid the raster. This doesnt sound right to me. Were you able to just select print > Epilog printer? Or did you also have an intermediate step?

Thanks!