Quick Trick to Make Script and Brush Fonts More Silhouette Cut Friendly

Did you ever find a font that you just love, but you know it's going to a challenge to cut on your Silhouette cutting machine?

Brush fonts, script fonts, and distressed fronts are notoriously difficult to cleanly cut with the Silhouette CAMEO or Portrait. Fortunately there are a few tricks you can do to make fonts easier to cut.
Cutting some fonts like Rumba or Fountain would be easy!

But if you take a look at Vlothelli, Grimpt, or Cursive Script you might shy away because of the distressed areas, internal cuts, or brushed areas.

So here's the thing, we all knew we can use the offset tool to make a thin font thicker in Silhouette Studio. But what about when you need to clean up a font or remove areas. You may be tempted to use the eraser tool, but I would suggest instead you release the compound path and delete the trouble spots.

Let's use a few fonts as an example.  The first thing you want to do, of course, is download and install the font on your computer and then re-start Silhouette Studio so they show up in your font list.

Start a text box using the Text tool on the left sidebar and type out some text. Change the font style to the font you wish to cut. I've changed the font styles to Vlothelli, Grimpt, and Cursive Script.

If you need to weld the font, do that now.  At this point the font is no longer treated as text, but as a shape since it's been welded.

Now, select the text and right click and then pick "Release Compound Path".

You'll notice that lots of those little problem areas now have bounding or selection boxes around them.

You can either opt to select all of what you want to keep (full letters and counters) or all of what you do want to delete (specks).  Whichever you do, pull it away from the other.

Now select all of the little stuff left behind and delete it.

When all the little problem areas are gone, select what remains of your text > right click > Make Compound Path.

And that's how easy it is to clean up your fonts to make them easier to cut!

Now you can easily cut more of those brush and script fonts and not just the big ol' bold fonts.

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