An oft-asked question by my customers designing titles goes like this: “I’ve welded some letters together but the middles disappeared! Help!”
Very simple diagnosis and a very simple fix: If you’ve gone to Arrange>Break Path so that you can edit the letters (or any image with interior parts) and you neglect to then do an Arrange>Make Path, then those interior paths will vanish upon welding. So, after editing your letters, just marquis-select each one (making sure you select both the exterior path and the interior path) and then do an Arrange>Make Path. Today’s video shows you exactly how it works.
I fail to mention in the video that this works the same way with just a basic shape. If you have, for example, a flower with a center circle and you have not execute an Arrange<Make Path, then when you weld the flower to any other object, that center circle will disappear. Also, remember that if you ever weld anything and you do not get the results you expected, then always back up a step (Edit>Undo). I’ve also had customers who have performed a Make Path on everything at one time (as I show in the video), then tried to weld and noticed that nothing seemed to happen. Then they begin doing the Break Path and trying to re-Make Path and weld and end up with sort of a mess. So, remember that all-important Edit>Undo as well.
Thanks to Johanna H, I discovered something new last weekend at the St. Louis KNK Retreat. There are FOUR forms of text versus just three. I have already referred to text as being either “Just Typed”, “Converted to Graphics” or “Having Applied Break Path.” But I found out that ungrouping text provides yet another condition in which the typed title will be broken into individual letters BUT you can still go back to the text Smart Bar on any individual letter. Cool!
Today’s video shows all four forms and their differences.
Now I’m waiting to see if anyone comes up with a 5th! Let us know!
The other day, at one of the KNK Yahoo groups, I posted some new links to web sites with free vector graphics. Kylee, one of the group members, contacted me asking for some help with how to import and use these images. She had chosen one of the free files, which is TRULY a jewel to find! Above is a beautiful set of ornamental designs by Garcya available at:
Designus – Free Ornamental Design
So, Kylee wanted to know how to pick just one of the images to cut. So, I made a quick video showing the process and, at the same time, decided to add in a little bit on reducing nodes and also simplifying the image. Enjoy and let me know if you have questions!
ImportingEPSImages
I heard from my VERY first Klic-N-Kut customer yesterday, Kristi H. She posted about needing to modify a very ornate font. So, I had a look at it and decided that this would make a great tutorial in basic welding. I’m not sure I actually fully understand what Kristi needs, but that’s okay. After watching this, I know she’ll let me know if I went down the wrong path. lol In the meantime, this is what I would want to do with these letters to make them more usable for my own cutting.
I have both the video and the letter “H” that I used for the video, in case you want to play with this same font yourself for practise. Note that I kept it rather simple, but you could include a lot more of the flourishes, if you so desire.
Video on Modifying an Ornate Font
File Used in the Video
As promised, I pondered about real life examples that might help users better understand Grouping versus Making Path. My first thought was Fruit Salad versus a Smoothie… but then I realized that with a Smoothie, you cannot go backwards and extract the individual pieces of fruit back out of it! lol
So, I pondered some more and come up with the following analogy, which I think is pretty cool. 
Grouping is like a car pool where you put various people together into a vehicle for the purpose of moving them together from Point A to Point B, BUT those people are still very much individuals from different locations each with their own purpose and priorities. And so, with grouping, the images retain their color and their original format… even raster images remain raster. When grouped you simply can move them as one, rotate, resize etc.
Making Path is more like a sports team where individuals come together, they wear the same uniform (become the same color) and there’s a bigger purpose for them to be together. They perform in unison. Making Path on selected vector images will make them all the same color, convert them all to polyarc or polygon, the nodes for all will show up at once when selected, and if you send then to cut, along with other objects, all of the objects in that “Make Path” group will be cut together before or after other objects.
Does this help?
