Hello, Janet here to share my excitement over the new Glyphs panel in version 4.1 of the Silhouette® Studio software. It makes using adding the extra characters available in some fonts SO much easier. The feature is only available in Designer Edition and above.
Accessing the NEW Glyphs Feature
Open the Glyphs tab by clicking on the Text Style Panel icon and selecting the Glyphs tab. The panel then displays all the characters available in a particular font. You can even enlarge them for viewing by using the using the slide bar an the bottom of the panel.
Using Glyphs (or any character)
To place a character onto your workspace, just double-click the preview of your chosen character in the glyphs panel. Characters that have been used appear in the 'recently used' section. Double click on any one of these to also place it onto the workspace.
Some fonts include characters known as 'alternates' (alternative forms of a letter) and some include 'dingbats' (or ornaments). Both can be used like other letters so are scalable and contain cut lines. These can be treated in just the same way as ordinary characters when using the glyphs panel.
The panel can be used with fonts purchased from the Silhouette Design Store as well as those purchased elsewhere. Here are some examples of where I found the panel to be especially useful for a selection of store bought fonts:
Using Monogram Fonts
The Silhouette Design Store has a good selection of monogram fonts both plain and fancy. Using the the glyphs panel makes selecting the characters very much easier.
Tip: For navigating between each typed character, use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.
Using Dingbat Fonts
There are some great dingbat fonts on the Silhouette Design Store and are a really useful source of simple, single colour designs. The fonts from the store are TTF or OTF which means the characters are scalable, even the picture ones, so you can make them as big as you like, giving lots of potential uses for these simple picture elements.
To make them look like the ones in the top row, just fill with black and change the lines to black.
Tip: To remove the wiggly blue line, ungroup and then regroup the group of characters.
Using the replicate function you can quickly make a wreath of leaves and nuts to encircle the squirrel in the LW Autumn Dingbats font (#216208). Drag the centre of rotation towards where you estimate the centre of the wreath should be, then Replicate Panel > Rotate 5 Copies. Keep them as one colour or separate the elements by ungrouping (where possible) and use multiple colours.
You can fill the characters with colours and print to make quick and simple single layer cards and invitations. These images are from the LW Birthday Dingbats (#209615).
Using Fonts with Fancy Glyphs
Did you download the free font, Dreamland Arrows Font by Rivka Williams (#217137), from a few weeks ago? Displaying the various arrows in the glyphs panel makes them easy to select and mix and match. They can be used without the lettering too - great for wall art. They can be sketched as well as printed or cut.
There are other lovely fonts with fancy extras too, like the Live, Laugh, Love Font by Rivka Wlkins (#203557). I can never remember which characters to type for the extras, but the glyphs panel takes the guess work away.
Using Fonts with Extra Characters
Bonus images images are much easier to find using the Glyphs panel too. Here I've chosen the dinosaurs from ZP Triassic (#135806) and made a design for a quick door sign in moments.
You'll find many more in the store.
If you have the basic version of the software you can still access glyphs with a workaround. Niki has a tutorial on how to access glyphs with the basic edition and Windows software here.
Bye for now,
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What a lovely informative post.
ReplyDeleteYes. Really good, Janet. Your enthusiasm shines through 😊
ReplyDelete