Thursday, August 14, 2014

Simple Font Viewer Program. PC only.

Download Link Below

A few people will find this very useful others not so much. The program is PC only. This is a very simple program I wrote to help me select a font to use in my patterns. When the program loads it loads all your installed fonts in the list. Just above that to can type a word to display in the selected font. You will see the word in the selected font in the display area. You can resize the word with the slider above the display. That's all it does.  Simple but if you have hundreds of fonts installed like I do it's pretty helpful.

When I did the word art patterns the other day I received lots of email asking how to do them. I use CorelDraw which can be pretty expensive but it gives me all kinds of control to manipulate the letters. If you look at the picture you see my name. It's using a font named "Ballpark". As it types it is not quite ready to cut on the scroll saw. See that the S is not connected to the t. In CorelDraw I would finish the connector between the S and the t. Then I would perhaps draw a base under it if it were a desk name plate. If it was goin to be hung on the wall it would be ready to cut.

You can download thousands of free and paid fonts off the web. This particular font can be
found here. While you will not have all the features to manipulate the characters you can do word art in a program like Microsoft Word that many more people have available. The next picture shows the same font selected in Word 2013 at a size of 200pt. If you want a very large cutting just use a photo copier to enlarge to the size you need.

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Another choice is a vector graphics program like Inkscape. I'm not personally a big fan of Inkscape because I find it kind of klunky to get around in but it is free. It's hard to beat free. It will allow you to do many of the things a program like CorelDraw will do if you take the time to learn it. That's another problem, There is a bit of a learning curve. You can download Inkscape here. I don't want to make you think I dislike Inkscape because for a free program it is top notch. It's just difficult to go from CorelDraw to Inkscape because CorelDraw is top notch. If you are interested in starting to design scroll saw pattern you might find Inkscape a nice program to start with.
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The Scrollsaw Workshop is primarily supported by donations. If you enjoy this Blog and would like to make a donation please click this link. Your support is greatly appreciated. Make A Donation

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=KVD43MBSX969Q
Click book to purchase.
This book is only available in digital format. There will be a link on the final payment page that directs you to the download page. I will also send an automated email with the link to the download page.

If you would like to have all the patterns in the Scrollsaw Workshop catalog you can buy the first six years DVD and the 2013 update DVD at this link. DVD #1 is $20 and contains over 1,100 patterns. The 2013 update DVD is $7.50 and has another 178 patterns.

Dog Leash Hanger Scroll Saw Pattern.

Dog Leash Hanger.
The Scrollsaw Workshop is primarily supported by donations. If you enjoy this Blog and would like to make a donation please click this link. Your support is greatly appreciated. Make A Donation

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=KVD43MBSX969Q
Click book to purchase.
This book is only available in digital format. There will be a link on the final payment page that directs you to the download page. I will also send an automated email with the link to the download page.

If you would like to have all the patterns in the Scrollsaw Workshop catalog you can buy the first six years DVD and the 2013 update DVD at this link. DVD #1 is $20 and contains over 1,100 patterns. The 2013 update DVD is $7.50 and has another 178 patterns.