Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: kramerda on October 26, 2009, 04:33:26 PM

Title: More text and engrave questions
Post by: kramerda on October 26, 2009, 04:33:26 PM

Tried to do lots of searhing before rekindling,  this topic but never found an answer so here goes

Is there a simpleway to get multiple lines of text engraved?
LazyCam only does one at a time, same for DeskEngrave.

Thought I could convert text using HPGL driver but no luck in finding a way to do that.
Thought about using an HP driver for old 7475a plotter (HP says no longer available)

I'm not into VB and don't have access to AutoCAD.......

Any thoughts appreciated.  Text to DXF or Text to HPGL ???

dk

Title: Re: More text and engrave questions
Post by: ger21 on October 26, 2009, 06:59:06 PM

How about this.

http://www.dwgtool.com/outlart.htm

Title: Re: More text and engrave questions
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on October 27, 2009, 10:07:27 AM

I keep an old PC still running W98 as this operating system still supports the HP 7475a driver. This driver is installed exactly as a printer would be and it will print to file the HPGL code of any drawing you can make with a vector based program such as Microsoft Powerpoint. The resultant HPGL is then easily converted to GCode and used with Mach.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

Title: Re: More text and engrave questions
Post by: kramerda on October 27, 2009, 02:39:58 PM

Thanks for the idea - do you know if the driver will run on a Win XP machine - is available anywhere?

Title: Re: More text and engrave questions
Post by: Tweakie.CNC on October 28, 2009, 03:29:53 AM

Unfortunately WinXP does not support the HP7475a printer driver. This is why many people, like me, who still use a Roland Plotter keep a W98 setup. The HP7475a can be downloaded from many sites on the internet but let me know if you have trouble finding it and I will post a copy.

Tweakie.

Title: Re: More text and engrave questions
Post by: mtcallagh on October 31, 2009, 06:38:34 AM

Hi,
I've just come across SerifDrawPlus8, nice and cheap to download. This gives an export to cad/cam option. I saved three lines of text with this which opened fine in LazyCam. I haven't had time to explore greatly but on first impressions things look good.
Hope this helps.
Mike