LightBurn Tutorial 18 – SHX (Single Line) Fonts

0:00 today we’ll be going over the new shx

0:02 text feature

0:04 so you’re obviously all used to the

0:06 standard

0:08 built into the operating system fonts

0:11 like this one

0:12 and that’s fine but it’s designed

0:14 specifically to be displayed

0:16 on a screen or printed on a page and

0:18 isn’t really designed with

0:20 laser or cnc type use in mind

0:24 for one all fonts like this have to be a

0:27 completely closed

0:28 shape now there are some like there’s

0:30 the cam bam style

0:33 single line fonts which can kind of

0:36 approximate this but in reality it’ll

0:38 often be

0:39 overlapping lines so that the overall

0:42 shape is still closed which

0:44 is great if you want to have filled text

0:46 we won’t deny that

0:48 however with the laser a single line

0:51 font can often be much more efficient

0:53 for your workflow

0:55 so to be able to use those you go to

0:56 settings

0:58 file settings and now under font

1:00 settings we have a new

1:01 set shx font path button now one thing

1:04 to note

1:05 we don’t ship with shx fonts installed

1:07 you’ll have to get them yourself

1:09 that’s easy enough just search for free

1:11 shx

1:12 fonts online and you’ll find hundreds of

1:15 them freely available

1:17 so i’m going to click on this button

1:21 and then go to the shx fonts folder that

1:23 i already created earlier now you won’t

1:24 see any of the actual font files in here

1:27 that’s just because we’re in a directory

1:29 selection mode

1:30 i’m going to click select folder and

1:33 then click ok

1:34 and now immediately i will have

1:37 shx fonts available to use and as you

1:40 can see the system fonts have this tt

1:42 icon next to them and shx has the

1:45 shx option next to it as you can see

1:48 this is a single line shx font so

1:51 instead of a

1:52 closed loop path like the t for example

1:55 here

1:55 is simply two lines it’s going to be

1:57 much faster if you don’t actually need

1:59 the thickness

Transcript for LightBurn Fonts Tutorial: SHX Single Line Fonts (Cont…)

2:00 of the text to do a quick line engraving

2:04 with a laser

2:05 one thing to note with the shx fonts so

2:07 all of the names here

2:10 are just the file name of the shx files

2:13 that will

2:13 be on your computer the reason for this

2:16 is because

2:17 and here’s a perfect example the tool

2:19 tip showing here translated april 13th

2:21 1998.

2:23 that is the name field in the file

2:26 and it’s not always really used

2:28 correctly in a lot of these older files

2:31 some of them have been around for quite

2:32 a long time so instead we show

2:34 the file name and not that although you

2:37 can see it in the tooltip as shown here

2:39 but this also means that you can then

2:42 find the actual file that represents

2:44 that font easily on your computer later

2:46 so shx also has some other things like

2:49 there’s fonts like this

2:50 which as you can see it’s actually got a

2:52 pre-done fill pattern

2:54 now as opposed to the standard fill and

2:57 lightburn where you typically try to

2:58 have very close lines and completely

3:00 fill that

3:01 this is just a back and forth pattern

3:04 with a decent spacing between them

3:06 which may be all you need now that can

3:08 be replicated with the normal fill modes

3:10 in lightburn

3:11 but this is pre-done for you and it

3:13 generally looks pretty good in our

3:14 experience with the ones that we found

3:16 there’s even sort of more regular fonts

3:18 like this which are not filled

3:20 and even some fonts like these where as

3:22 you can see

3:23 it’s actually multiple lines overlapping

3:26 so

3:26 shx because it doesn’t have that

3:28 restriction of having to be a closed

3:30 shape is much more open

3:33 to doing interesting font designs and as

3:37 i noted before

3:38 having single line fonts like this even

3:41 the ones that were partially filled like

3:43 what i showed before

3:44 can actually be much quicker to engrave

3:46 which i can show you in a demo right now

3:49 this first example is a standard

3:51 built-in system font

3:52 as you can see it’s fully closed shapes

3:54 this is happening

3:55 in real time

3:58 and it requires just over 21 seconds to

Transcript for LightBurn Fonts Tutorial: SHX Single Line Fonts (Cont…)

4:01 complete the burn

4:06 this next example however is a basic

4:08 single line style shx font

4:10 with the same exact total bounding area

4:13 as the first example

4:15 yet it requires only 13 seconds to

4:17 finish the burn

4:24 this last example is just showing off an

4:25 shx font that has a pre-made

4:28 fill pattern although at three times

4:31 normal speed

4:32 and as you can see even though it’s not

4:33 completely filled like you would with a

4:35 normal

4:36 lightburn fill pattern it still does

4:38 give a much darker effect to the text

4:40 overall

4:52 that’s all for now we hope you enjoy the

4:54 new shx fonts feature