Sign Making

Sign panels and blanks routed, cut or lasered from sheet, with their fixing holes, routed borders and lettering, stencils, and vinyl graphics for them. A drawing whose industry is Sign making offers these tools in the toolbar and in Edit › Tool.

Tools

	Tool	Does
	Corners	A panel's corners finished: rounded, chamfered or notched
	Fixing Holes	Fixing holes a set distance in from a panel's edges
	Routing Inset	A routed border a distance in from a shape's edge
	Outline Text	Lettering as outlines to cut
	Stencil Bridges	Bridges across a stencil's cuts, holding its islands
	Tab	Tabs (micro-joints) left uncut in a cut, holding the part in the sheet
	Lead	Where a closed cut starts and ends, with a lead-in and lead-out off the part
	Weed Border	A weed box round the design, a margin out
	Weed Lines	Cuts across the waste between the letters
	Contour Cut	A cut round a printed design, a distance out
	Tiling	A design larger than the roll split into overlapping panels
	Colour Separation	Registration marks on every colour's layer

The production tools for every industry, Registration Mark and Drill Hole, are offered too.

To cut a logo or graphic you have only as a picture, trace it into closed curves with the Trace Tool, beside the Raster Image Tool in the general tools.

To weld lettering to its backing plate for one outline to cut, or cut a logo out of a panel, use the general Boolean Tool: the result follows the letters and the plate.

The library's designs cut the panel on layer 0, put what is routed on the Route layer (21), and put guides (centre lines, labels, where stand-offs and studs go) on layer 8 (Dimension), which the exports leave out. Engraving goes on the standard Engrave layer (see Layers).

Exports for sign making

File › Export › Export… writes the formats sign makers send to their machines:

Print-and-cut PDF and EPS: artwork printed and the contour cut as a CutContour spot colour, with registration marks, for a print-and-cut RIP (VersaWorks, Onyx, Caldera, Flexi …).
GP-GL for Graphtec cutting plotters, a file per layer, and HP-GL for other vinyl cutters.
SVG for Cricut and Silhouette, at its true size, a colour for each layer.
LightBurn projects and SVG for Glowforge and xTool for cutting and engraving signs and letters on a laser.
G-code for routing panels and letters, and DXF for other CAD and CAM programs.

Designs in the library

File › Run Parametric… has a Sign making folder (see Run Parametric); a drawing made from one of its designs is for this industry:

Design	What it is
A-board panels	The two panels of a pavement sign, with a hand hole and hinge holes
Hanging sign with bracket holes	A sign hung from a projecting bracket, or fixed to a flag bracket
Plaque with routed border	A plaque with a border routed a distance in from its edge
Shaped sign blank	A circle, triangle, octagon, diamond or square blank with a border
Sign panel	A panel with rounded or cut corners, oval or arched, and its fixing holes
Stencil plate	A stencil whose islands are held by bridges
Tray sign blank	A sign face with a return folded back on every side

Machine profiles

Make It (File › Export › Make It, Ctrl+Shift+M, or the Make It button at the top of the window) writes the cutter's file (Vinyl cutter (HP-GL)) in one click, beside the drawing, after checking the design: see Make It.

File › Export › Export… lists this trade's formats first. File › Send Using Machine Profile sends the drawing to a machine in one click, with the format, options, layer names and pens it needs; those that come with the app for this trade: Vinyl cutter (HP-GL), Laser CAM by colour (DXF), Zünd Cut Center (DXF), Kongsberg table (DXF), Sample table (HP-GL, a pen a tool), Print and cut (PDF, CutContour), CNC router (DXF, depth in the layer names), CNC router (G-code, tools from the layers), Graphtec cutter (GP-GL), LightBurn laser (project). See Export by Industry and Machine Profiles.

See also: Industries and Tool Sets, Tools.