Single line font conversion question

[Brian Vacca]

A few months ago you answered my question promptly and I appreciated that. The update now does what I asked about, so I downloaded demo.
I created a font in Adobe Illustrator and wanted to import each letter graphic into type 3.1 to make a true type font for use in a engraving operation on metal plates for plaques, trophies, etc. I am only interested in single line output for engraving. When importing the .svg file the fill view is wrong and would be time consuming to fix.
Do you have any solutions to save font for single line output. Fonts like this are hard to find and I thought about making my own. I want to purchase software but it needs to work for this process.
Thanks

[Allan Murray]

TrueType fonts can only contain closed contours. Preview fill will appear to close any open contours, because that is how fonts are rendered.

'Single line' TrueType fonts that I have seen are not really single line (open contours), but have a closed contour looping back on itself, to appear as a single line. You can do this in Type 3.1 with a bit of manual manipulation:

1) For open contours:
- select the contour (CTRL+ trace a box around a point on the contour with select tool - or click on a point then press CTRL+E)
- select the 'stroke' tool (bottom right). Right click on the edit window and enter '1' as the stroke value. This will close the contour on itself, and it will appear as a single line.
2) For closed contours:
- select the contour
- press CTRL+C (copy)
- press CRTL+R (reverse)
- press CTRL+V (paste)
This will create two contours one on another, with one in the reverse direction.

The only problem with these 'single line' fonts is that your engraver will trace over each path twice. I don't know of any other way that you can create single line fonts. TrueType fonts were not really designed to be used this way.

[Brian Vacca]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

My engraving machine software uses single line fonts, extension .vfont , that works that way. It renders the font in single line strokes. I may need to contact the software company and see if they can enlighten me. Why is it that the fonts installed are never the one I need?