AxiDraw Fonts

Fonts for the AxiDraw

The AxiDraw is a pen plotter that draws lines with its pen. On its own, it does not have any concept of what a font is. Similarly, it does not have any real restrictions on what typefaces or sizes or shapes or character sets can be used.

When designing in Inkscape, you can use the built-in page layout tools to lay out text on your page. Inkscape works with most fonts installed on your system (truetype and opentype, generally).

Before printing text to the AxiDraw, select the text (or select all) and choose the menu option: Path>Object to Path. This converts your text from editable into a set of curves that can be printed on the AxiDraw.

General advice

The width of your pen is important, especially at smaller text sizes.

Thinner fonts will look better.

When possible, increase the typical space between neighboring characters (kerning), to compensate for the fact that the pen stroke has a width.

Where to find fonts

Free fonts are available online, for example at: http://fontmeme.com/freefonts/theme/48/handwritten

A word of caution, however: Free fonts that you find online often have errors, and may not work correctly in all programs.

Single stroke fonts

Single stroke fonts -- designed specifically for pen plotters and similar machines -- will always look the best, but are rare and sometimes hard to use.

Please read our article about Hershey Text for an introduction to single stroke fonts. (Hershey Text is an Inkscape extension that we wrote, which is now bundled with every copy of Inkscape.)

A great resource for finding and learning more about single stroke fonts is the Summary of single-line fonts from IJ Instruments.