Fonts and lettering
Lettering is not just an outline filled with stitches. A letter that sews well at 8 mm is drawn differently from the same letter at 80 mm, so Boldbobbin ships digitized fonts: typefaces that carry a real stitch design for every letter. Read this page to understand why the same word can stitch differently at two sizes, how to steer that, and what you can do with your own fonts on each plan.
What a digitized font is
An ordinary font (a .ttf or .otf) describes letter shapes. A digitized
font adds the stitching: for each letter, the actual satin columns, running
lines, or filled regions that sew it, drawn the way a digitizer would draw them.
Boldbobbin keeps a digitized font as a .bbf file: the typeface plus the
stitches for every letter, in one file you can back up or move to another
computer.
When you type with a digitized font you get those stitches directly. When you type with a font that hasn't been digitized, Boldbobbin falls back to filling the letter outlines, which works but is rarely as good.
Size ranges
A font carries several complete digitizations, each measured for a band of sizes. Boldbobbin calls these ranges, and picks one from the size of your text:
- Running: a single line down the middle of each stroke, for small text.
- Satin: stitches laid across each stroke. This is what most embroidered lettering looks like.
- Tatami: the letter filled row by row, for text too large for satin.
- Contour: each letterform traced as a single running line, one loop around the glyph and one around each counter, with nothing filling the middle. Because it is a line rather than a fill, it is valid at every size, so it sits beside the sized ranges rather than inside one.
The boundaries differ per face, because they follow how thick each face's strokes are. Satin suits a stroke that is wide enough to sew as a column, yet narrow enough that its stitches don't get long enough to snag. For example, a heavy face like Anton outgrows satin early (Tatami above about 69 mm), while a light one like Lora stays in satin up to about 175 mm.
Ranges may overlap, leave gaps, or cover any size, so a style that is good everywhere (like Contour) can sit beside sized ones.
A range is a recommendation, not a rule. You can pick a different one for any piece of text, and your choice sticks: see Add text.
Dragging text bigger or smaller on the canvas stretches the stitches it already has, exactly like scaling any other object. It does not switch ranges. If you resize a lot, change the Range yourself in the Properties panel so the text is stitched from a digitization meant for that size.
For example, Lato text set at 40 mm and then dragged up to 160 mm stays on Satin, even though Lato switches to Tatami above about 152 mm. Pick Tatami under Range to match the new size.
The fonts that come with Boldbobbin
Six faces ship digitized and ready to use, all under the SIL Open Font License:
| Font | Ranges it carries |
|---|---|
| Lato | Satin, then Tatami above ~152 mm |
| Montserrat | Satin, then Tatami above ~165 mm |
| Oswald | Satin, then Tatami above ~111 mm |
| Anton | Satin, then Tatami above ~69 mm |
| Lora | Satin, then Tatami above ~175 mm |
| Great Vibes | Running below ~18 mm, Satin, then Tatami above ~297 mm |
Only Great Vibes ships a running range: it's a script face whose thin strokes read well as a single line. For the other five, a single line at small sizes looks like a broken outline rather than a letter, so they start at satin. Fonts you import are digitized all three ways.
Many of the letters in these faces have been corrected by hand rather than generated, so the tricky ones (the join of an a, the bowl of a g) sew the way a person would draw them.
Using your own fonts
You can bring in any Latin .ttf or .otf and Boldbobbin will digitize it for
you, then let you correct any letter by hand. See
Import a font and
Edit a font.
A font belongs to your account
A font you make belongs to the account that made it. On a computer shared by several people, each account sees only its own fonts. If your plan includes cloud fonts, they also follow you: sign in on another computer and they are there.
- Signing out hides your fonts, it does not delete them. Signing back in brings them back. Worth knowing before you sign out and find the list empty.
- Fonts made while signed out become yours when you sign in.
- A font that is already in the cloud can take a moment to appear the first time you open the library after an update.
Each card in the Lettering library says where that font stands right now: Saved to cloud, Not in the cloud yet, Saving to cloud…, On this computer only, or Couldn't save to cloud with a Retry button.
While Boldbobbin checks the cloud for a newer copy of one of your fonts, its card can't be opened ("Checking the cloud for a newer version. One moment."). Wait for the check to finish. Bundled and imported fonts never wait like this.
If you edit one font on two computers
Edit the same face in two places and Boldbobbin asks instead of letting one silently erase the other. You get three choices, and the first destroys nothing:
- Keep both: brings the other copy in as a separate font.
- Use the cloud copy: replaces your local one.
- Replace the cloud copy: sends yours over theirs.
Nothing uploads while the question is open. If you haven't changed your copy and the other one is simply newer, Boldbobbin takes the newer one without asking.
What needs Pro
Making and using your own fonts is free. Exporting is where Pro comes in:
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Import a font and digitize it | Yes | Yes |
| Edit any letter's stitches | Yes | Yes |
| Set text in your own font, preview and stitch it | Yes | Yes |
Save the design as a .vemb | Yes | Yes |
| Export a design that uses your own font | No | Yes |
Export the font itself as a .bbf | No | Yes |
| Keep your fonts in the cloud | No | Yes |
The six bundled faces are never gated: a design that uses only those exports normally on any plan. If you've used your own font and want to export on the Free plan, switch that text back to a bundled font first. See Plans and credits.