Hi,

What you can do, is once you converted the text to a path, ungroup it, and then combine it (Path → Combine). That's one of the ways to obtain a single path consisting of multiple parts.

What I cannot figure out, is how to get the result from your picture -- when I convert a text to a path, each letter is a closed path -- it would be nice to know how to convert these closed paths to single paths (using a thicker line width of course).

mrbenbritton wrote:I could do it by drawing the letters by hand but would like an easier way. I have tried to find a font that is a single path, not an outline

Fonts like this are not for general use AFAIK but for specific machines. I don't think they would be usable on any personal computer... All TTF and OTF fonts are filled.
What you want to do is to get the thinnest font you can find, convert it to paths, then select all nodes and break each path at every node, delete the paths you don't 'want, and combine the remaining into one path again. That deleting step is the manual work that seems to be the problem for most users but in this case is unavoidable.

druban wrote:Fonts like this are not for general use AFAIK but for specific machines. I don't think they would be usable on any personal computer... All TTF and OTF fonts are filled.

Hershey Text: An Inkscape extension for engraving fonts (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

Thanks for the link ~suv, all the info you could possibly want is on that page! Downloading right now. I can think of lots of use for these!
So anyway my little diagram of how to do this is not exactly relevant anymore, but being obtuse of character i shall post it nonetheless!

Thanks everyone for your replies.

~suv: Thanks for pointing out Hershey font, it did the trick!

It took a little fiddling to get it to work, a brief explanation to help anyone who comes after this:

First use Hershey text
Object -> ungroup (Inkscape doesn't like grouped paths for this)
Path -> Reverse
Path -> Combine (Thanks Ailurus)
Path -> Reverse
Text -> Place on path

The double reverse is so the digits start on the start of the first letter. Without reversing it would paste from the end of the name to the beginning.

Here is the result:


Not perfect, the digits sit on top of the path, this means that they sometimes dip below the line, upside down. This also causes the "e"s to have no gap in the middle. It would be nice to be able to paste with the center of the digits on the path. If anyone knows how to do this please add to this thread.

mrbenbritton wrote:Thanks everyone for your replies.

~suv: Thanks for pointing out Hershey font, it did the trick!

It took a little fiddling to get it to work, a brief explanation to help anyone who comes after this:

First use Hershey text
...
The double reverse is so the digits start on the start of the first letter. Without reversing it would paste from the end of the name to the beginning.

Similar result just using the Pattern along Path effect - you still need to ungroup then combine after using the hershey text extension, but it does end up centering the text along the path rather than sitting on top.



-Rob A>