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Add text

  1. Click Text in the tool rail, or press T.
  2. The Add text dialog opens: type on the left, watch a live preview on the right.
  3. Set the options and confirm with Add, or Ctrl/Cmd+Enter. Press Esc to cancel.

The text is placed centered on the hoop. To edit it later, double-click it on the canvas and the dialog reopens as Edit text.

Options​

  • Text: type here. Enter starts a new line.
  • Font: a list of families, each shown set in that font, using the text you're typing so you can see how your own words look. Fonts you've imported appear under Your fonts. See Fonts and lettering.
  • Size: 4 mm to 120 mm, default 20 mm. This is the letter height.
  • Letter spacing: extra gap between letters, from -2 mm to 10 mm.
  • Alignment: Left, Center, or Right, for multi-line text.

Reset defaults puts the font, size, spacing and alignment back without clearing what you typed.

The preview​

The preview offers the same three views as the canvas itself:

  • Vector: the geometry, drawn instantly. This is the only view that works before stitches are generated.
  • Stitches: real generated stitches, at your document's fabric density.
  • Realistic: the same stitches, lit. Needs WebGPU; the button explains itself if your browser can't do it.

Stitches and Realistic generate as you type (with a short pause so it isn't regenerating on every keystroke), so what you see is what gets added.

Choosing the stitch design​

Under the preview, Stitch design lets you pick which of the font's size ranges to stitch from: typically Satin or Tatami, and Running or Contour on a face that offers them. A dot marks the one that suits your current size.

Contour traces each letterform 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 is offered everywhere and recommended nowhere.

It only appears when the font has more than one digitization to choose from.

  • Leave it alone and it follows the size: "Following the size recommendation."
  • Pick one deliberately and it stays picked, even if you change the size: "Your choice, kept if you change the size."

You can also change it after placing the text, in the Properties panel's Digitization → Range.

After it's placed​

Select the text and the essentials bar carries what text actually has: size, letter spacing, line spacing, and alignment, plus Edit text to reopen the dialog. The stitch parameters are one click away, under Stitching. A font that stitches each part its own way says so, and the settings reach every part that uses them.

Changing the size re-sets the word at the new size rather than scaling it, so the strokes stay right for the size.

You can edit text in realistic mode.

The Properties panel offers:

  • Digitization → Range: the size range it's stitched from, as above.

  • Digitization → Connections: what the machine does between the strokes of a word. New text is Automatic, which sews gaps under 3 mm, jumps up to 10 mm, and trims beyond. You can force Always sew, Always jump, or Always trim instead.

    Script faces used to over-trim

    New text once cut a thread between every column of every letter, which on a script face meant the machine stopping constantly and a tail to clip by hand. It now measures each gap and sews through the ones that meet, which is most of them within a word.

Cutting text​

The Cutter (K) splits text by letter: cutting "Hello World" between the words gives "Hello" and "World", both still real, still-digitized text you can retype. A letter is never cut through the middle.

Taking it apart​

To take the lettering apart and edit it like any other shape, select it and use Convert to… → Geometry in the floating action bar. You get a folder per letter, with satin columns still editable as satin columns. Boldbobbin confirms "Text split into N letters you can edit." This is a one-way trip (apart from an immediate undo): once converted, the text can't be retyped in the dialog.

If some characters are missing​

If your font has no glyph for something you typed, a warning appears right under the text box naming the characters. Those characters stitch as nothing at all, while still taking up their space, so a word can come out shorter than you typed with no other clue. Either change the font or drop the characters.