Adding Text to a Design in Adobe Illustrator
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Create a circle 3 inch x 3 inch
- Now, turn off the stroke and the fill lines.
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To align it to the centre, click and drag it until a small icon pops up that says centre.
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Select the Text tool
- Right Click on the Text tool
- Now, select the Type on a Path tool
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Select the Type on Path tool
- Click on the inner circle that you have selected. This will draw automatic text to the path.
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If the text is black and highlighted like this, you can type your text. Otherwise, click ON the text to select it again.
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While your text is selected, look at the toolbar above.
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This is where you will change your font (Size, as well as Regular, Italics, Bold) and typeface ( what it looks like).
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To move or flip text on a path, position the pointer over the type's center bracket until a small icon appears next to the pointer. Do one of the following: To move text along the path, drag the center bracket along the path. Hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) to prevent the type from flipping to the other side of the path.
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This text is now changed to be larger font, with a different typeface.
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Double click the Swatch fill
The text is RGB black( 0,0,0), which means the laser cutter will engrave these
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Select the Selection tool.
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Select the outer circle (it will go blue)
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Double click the Swatch stroke
Change this to RGB Red ( 255,0,0), which means the laser cutter will cut these lines
Select your outer, red circle, change the stroke thickness to be 0.0025
(Illustrator will make it 0.002, but don’t worry, just leave it)
This will change the line thickness to become thinner, and it should look like this:
- Change the stroke thickness to be 0.0025
- Laser Cutter files must have:
- RGB Black for engraving lines
- RGB Red with stroke weight : 0.0025 for cutting lines.
- is sized for 1:1 real world scale
To Review
This vector graphic is what a laser cutter design file will look like.