CrystalPress designers often want to convert lettering or logos into a single line of crystals. There are a couple of ways to do this, depending mostly on whether you also have access to CorelDraw or some other design program (Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape). Today we going to compare using a "centerline trace" in Corel/AI/Inkscape to using Ioline line fonts to "trace" a design
If you have one of those programs (in addition to Ioline Design), you can scan the design and then do a "centerline trace". A centerline trace will, essentially draw a line down the middle of the letters or shapes (more or less). However, it it is more often "less". The centerline drawn will usually need a lot of editing and will sometimes be jagged or crooked. The screen capture below shows the difference between a centerline trace and lettering created by modifying a line font. The upper "IOLINE" was centerline traced.
The lower "IOLINE" was created by selecting a font that was as similar as possible to the original font, then modifying the line font characters to match the original characters. Notice that the centerline trace is a little rough while the line font is nice and straight.
Tracing an original design with a line font first involves importing the lettering or log as a bitmap. You will then use that bitmap image underneath the line font as a guide to shaping your rhinestone "lines". You could also use a photo or scan of an existing design and import that into Ioline Design.
When using the line font, the lines that make up each character are often separate "strokes" or lines, so they can be individually re-sized to match the font you are "tracing". After typing in the letters in Ioline Design (below the original lettering), re-size the letters to match the original text, select the lettering, then click on "Arrange" and then "Text to Graphics". You can then drag individual letters over the original text and re-size or modify them to match the original text.
