Text in a DXF for laser cutting: cut, mark or engrave — and why TEXT is not cut

Why TEXT is a problem

In a DXF, a TEXT entity holds the string, its position and height, and the name of a text style; the style table holds the font file name. The letter shapes are not in the file. SheetCAM's manual says DXF does not handle TrueType fonts well because there is no standard format, and tells you to convert text into lines — “exploding” — to be sure the cut path matches the drawing. SendCutSend asks for all text converted to outlines. CypNest has Auto Explode, which turns text into curves, and CypCut lets you type text and convert it to curves — its manual says to do that last, because the text tools no longer work afterwards.

Cut, mark or engrave

Cut-through letters need bridges

When letters are cut out of a plate, the closed centres of letters such as O, D, B and R are islands: nothing holds them, and they fall out. SendCutSend's text guide says to choose a stencil font or “stencilize” the letters with bridges, and to make the bridges at least the minimum bridging width for the material thickness. Standalone (positive) letters are fine as they are; in negative text, each letter is a hole.

• Use a stencil font, or draw a bridge across every island by hand.
• Check the bridge width against the thickness; SendCutSend publishes its minimums per material.
• Keep strokes and counters no narrower than half the thickness — SendCutSend's rule for laser-cut holes is at least 50 % of the material thickness.
• Count what the letters cost: every letter and every counter is one more pierce and more cut length — see pierces and cut length.

What Zorocut does with text

• TEXT and MTEXT entities are not cut. The pre-cut check counts them, for example “Not cut: 3 TEXT, 1 MTEXT”. In an SVG, text elements are skipped the same way.
• Layers whose names contain TEXT, DIM, ANNO or TITLE are ignored entirely — so a layer called TEXT_ENGRAVE is ignored too. Call engraving layers ENGRAVE and marking layers MARK, ETCH or SCRIBE.
• Outlines on a mark or engrave layer stay with the part they sit on, open paths included, and are exported on ZC_MARK or ZC_ENGRAVE. A mark that sits on no part is not exported.
• Outlines on a cut layer are contours like any other. Inside a plate each letter is a hole; the island inside an O becomes a small separate part and is nested on its own — the sign that bridges are missing. Letters that stand alone are separate parts.
• Zorocut never turns TEXT into letter shapes. The only text it writes is the optional part label: the part name as TEXT, 5 mm high, on ZC_LABEL, for the operator to read.

At the machine

1. Map ZC_MARK to CypCut layer 15: BOCHU's tutorial calls it the usual marking layer, processed first.
2. Map ZC_ENGRAVE to a marking layer, and ZC_LABEL and ZC_SHEET to layer 0, which is not processed — or switch labels off in the export profile.
3. Set the marking power, speed and gas on that layer in CypCut: Zorocut's DXF carries geometry only.
4. On a plasma table, SheetCAM needs text as lines too: give ZC_MARK its own low-current operation and ZC_LABEL none — see plasma in SheetCAM.