You will need to get Inkscape HERE. Inkscape is only available on PC and Mac and not on mobile devices or tablets at this time.

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You will begin by opening Inkscape on your computer.

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Begin clicking the A on the left hand side and click anywhere on your screen. Begin by typing in your text, you can use anything that you want to.

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The font is likely going to be very small so you will want to make it larger to see it. Simply click the selection tool (the black arrow) at the top left of the screen and click on your text.

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Arrows will appear around your text, holding CTRL or CMND on your keyboard while dragging one of the arrows outward will increase the size of your text.

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One more step before you change your text is to deselect the snapping tool. It is in the upper right hand corner.

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Now you can change your text to any font you want by selecting the A on the left hand side again and clicking your text. The font selection is a drop down menu in the upper left. One of the reasons I love Inkscape is because it automatically kerns the letters for you. Meaning it has them spaced correctly.

 

Once you have selected the font you would like to you will need to follow the following menu prompts to make the text a path so that the cutting machines can read the lines and text.

Path > Object to Path

Object > Ungroup

Path > Union

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Once you have done those steps your text will now be a path that the cutting machine can follow. Our next step is to add in our offset. You will follow these directions for that

Path > Linked offset at the bottom of the page choose a contrasting color. Any color is fine. This is to help you see your offset. Click on the small white diamond which should be somewhere along the top of your word.

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Drag it away from your word. The further you drag it the larger your offset will be

 

 

 

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Once you are satisfied with the size of your offset you will need to make this a path as well and remove any small cut holes in the middle of the offset. To do that here are all the prompts to follow

Path > Object to path

Path > Break apart

Path > Union

 

The last step is to save this as an SVG

File > Save as

You will want to be sure it is saving as an SVG file and then name the file and put it into whatever folder you want to save it in in your computer.

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Now all you will need to do is open your machines cutting software and upload that SVG!

 

You can find my video all about this to follow along with here!

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