The text tool is one of the most popular and most powerful tools in Silhouette Studio. We will explore it in detail another time … today is all about tips!
Tip 1 — Allow Fonts to Load
When you log into the software, don’t immediately click on the Text Style panel and try to change fonts …. it will keep reverting back to the default font and you will get very frustrated …. allow it a few minutes to get all the fonts loaded before you try to change a font. The software used to load all the fonts when you opened it …. now it loads when you are ready to work with text.
Tip 2 — Frequently Used and Recently Used Fonts
Did you know that at the top of the Font Style panel, you have a section showing your Frequently Used Fonts and another showing your Recently Used Fonts? These are dynamic and will change as you use different fonts.
Tip 3 — Add Folders to Categorize your Fonts
If you have Designer Edition or above, you have the ability to add folders in your Fonts Folder. You add them in the Library and then can view them in the font dropdown in the Text Style Menu.
To add a folder, go to your Library. Right click on the Fonts folder. Select New Folder.
You will see a new folder called Untitled Folder. Change the name of the folder to the category you want to create. I selected Monograms. I already had a folder called Dingbats for all my dingbat fonts.
You can now click on the main fonts folder to see all your fonts. To find only the monogram fonts, enter “monogram” in the search bar. Now only my monogram fonts are in the Preview Window.
Left click on the first font. Scroll down to the last font. Shift Left click to select all the fonts. Left click and drag them into the newly created folder. Click on the Monogram folder and you will see all the monogram fonts in the preview window. In the Fonts folder in the left panel, you can see that I now have 53 monogram fonts in my folder.
The fonts are still in my main Fonts folder, but they are also in the Monograms folder inside my Fonts folder. When I look at the fonts in my Text Style panel, the monogram fonts are now in the Monogram folder. They are also still in the dropdown list, alphabetically.
Tip 4 — Use Font Styles
Fonts often have font styles — Bold, Italics and Underline are examples of font styles. If your font has a style, the icon for it will be dark so it can be selected. In this case, the font I have selected has a bold style, to the “B” is dark.
If you have a thin font that has a bold style, this is a great way to thicken the letters just a little so they can be cut smaller than usual.
You can read all about how to work with thin fonts in this post, Tips for Working with Thin Fonts.
Tip 5 — Accessing Alternate Fonts within a Font Family
Some fonts have more than one style, but they are not all contained in one font. In this case, you will see each style listed as a separate font in your font list. Here all the styles for Christmas Mystery are listed individually.
This font, Oswald, has extra font styles included but they are not listed individually. To access them, click on the arrow next to the Underline icon and select the style from the dropdown list.
These are just a few of my favorite tips for working with fonts! I hope you found at least one to be helpful. Be sure to check back for more about text in future posts.
If you enjoyed these tips, please join my Facebook groups … Libby’s Silhouette Group — Tips, Tricks, Tutorials and Projects, Libby’s Craft and Sewing Group and Running With Sisers – Juliet and Romeo. You can also find me on FB at Libby’s Loft.com. Please join and feel free to ask questions and share your creations! I look forward to seeing you there!!
Until Next Time,
Happy Crafting!!
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Until Next time,
Happy Crafting!!
Disclaimer: Posts on this site may contain affiliate links. Clicking on one of these links or making purchases at linked sites does not mean you pay more for your purchases. It means I may receive a small commission on your purchase. This commission helps defray the costs of this site and enables me to continue to provide you with new and exciting content.
