Text

Write a name, a label or a sign straight into the project: Chipload turns the letters into shapes that you V-carve, pocket or cut out with a profile. (Design: docs/specs/text.md.)

Writing a text

1. Draw > Text in the ribbon (or DRAW > Text), then click on the canvas where the text should start. That point is the lower-left corner of the text’s box; set Anchor to centre afterwards to keep it centred on a point instead.
2. A text saying “Text” appears there, selected, with its properties open and the text field ready: type what it should say. Enter starts a new line. The letters are made again when you click elsewhere.
3. With the text selected, V-carve (or Pocket, Profile) in the ribbon cuts it. A new V-carve takes a V-bit from the project if it has one.

Esc stops placing a text.

Properties

Click the text in the Browser (under Drawing, with an A) or one of its letters on the canvas:

• Text: what it says, on one or more lines;
• Font: one of the built-in fonts (below);
• Height: the height of a capital letter, mm; what a ruler measures on an H;
• Anchor: what Position is: the lower-left corner of the text’s box, or its centre. A centred text stays centred when you change its words, font or size, which is handy for a name in the middle of a sign. Changing the anchor doesn’t move the text;
• Position: the anchor’s place on the stock, mm;
• Rotation: degrees counter-clockwise, any angle, about the box’s centre, with ⟲ 90 and ⟳ 90;
• Align: how lines line up: left, centre or right;
• Letter spacing: extra space between letters, mm; 0 keeps the font’s own spacing, kerning included (in a serif font, “AV” sits closer than “A V”);
• Line spacing: from one line’s base to the next, in capital heights (1.6 by default);
• Layer: the layer its letters go on (text by default);
• Size: the box’s width and height, for reference.

Each change applies when you finish the edit, as one undo step: Ctrl+Z brings the earlier text back. An operation that selects the text follows the change.

On the canvas: with the text selected, its box shows handles (in top view):

• the square in the middle moves it;
• the square beyond its right side turns it about its centre, in steps of 15°;
• a corner square makes it larger or smaller, keeping its proportions; the opposite corner stays where it is. Its height is rounded to 0.1 mm.

The box follows the cursor while you drag, and the text is written again when you let go, as one undo step. Hold Alt for no steps (any angle, any size) and no snapping.

Fonts

Chipload has 17 fonts built in, so a project writes the same letters on every computer. The Font list groups them and shows each name in its own face; chipload text fonts lists them with their style.

• Plain: FreeSans, FreeSerif and FreeMono, each also bold (GNU FreeFont), and Roboto Slab and Roboto Slab Bold.
• Script: Satisfy, Yellowtail and Rochester, handwriting with joined letters.
• Display: Luckiest Guy, Ultra, Chewy, Smokum, Cherry Cream Soda and Permanent Marker, bold and decorative, for headings and signs.

They all have the Latin letters with accents (Å, Ä, Ö, É, Ñ, Ø, …), digits and the common symbols (€, °, ±; ⌀ only in some of the FreeFont faces). A character a font lacks is left out, and the report names it.

Joined letters: where letters overlap, as in a script where one letter runs into the next, or where a letter is drawn as overlapping strokes, Chipload joins them into one outline, so a pocket or V-carve sees clean shapes. Holes stay holes where nothing covers them. Letters that don’t overlap anything keep the font’s exact outline.

Choosing: serif fonts V-carve beautifully: the V-bit cuts the thin strokes shallow and the thick ones deep. The scripts V-carve well too. For a pocket or a profile, a font with even, sturdy strokes works best (FreeSans Bold, Roboto Slab, Ultra, Luckiest Guy, Chewy); Smokum’s pointed serifs need a pocketing tool of 2 mm or more.

Licences: GNU FreeFont is under the GPL with the font exception, the others under the Apache License 2.0. Neither puts any condition on what you make: the letters you cut and their G-code are yours.

In the project file

A text is stored with what it says and how, and its letters are stored as shapes too. So the font is needed only to change the text; a project cuts the same whatever the computer has installed. Chipload 0.19 and older can’t open a project that has a text.

Leaving letters out

As with a picture: with the whole text selected, Ctrl+click a letter (or one part of it, such as the hole of an O) to leave it out of the operation, and again to put it back. A left-out letter is found again when the text changes size, place or font.

Command line

chipload text add sign.chipload "MAKER\nSPACE" --height 20 --at 40,30 --font "FreeSerif Bold" --align center
chipload text set sign.chipload 1 --rotate 15 --spacing 1     # change it; its letters are made again
chipload text set sign.chipload 1 --anchor center --at 85,55  # centred on X85 Y55, and stays centred
chipload place sign.chipload --text 1 --at 10,10 --height 25  # its corner, turn and height
chipload text list sign.chipload
chipload text remove sign.chipload 1
chipload text fonts

\n in the text starts a new line. An operation selects the text with "select": {"text": 1}, and any value can be changed with chipload set (drawing.texts.0.text="SIGN"); the letters are made again.