Text

For labeling please first select Insert > Text Engraving and place the object. In the subsequent dialog box "Text engraving properties", you can then determine your desired properties.

A text engraving is a single or multi-line character string to which certain typographic features can be assigned, which can then be turned into an engraving. The characters must however originate from an "engravable" font.

After placing the object you can set the following variables for the required text engraving in the properties dialog box, while previewing the resulting engraving:

Variable	Description
Text	Single or multi-line character string
Font size	Font size of the text [points, millimetres or inches] (see ‘Reference point’ for details)
Incline	Input of the tangent for the inclined angle of the text (Example: Input of 100% corresponds to an inclined angle of 45°)
X-Scaling	The typeface is expanded or condensed in x-direction by the specified factor. If you select a negative factor, the text is mirrored.
Line spacing	The distance between the base lines of lines of text corresponds to the input factor times the cap height of the text [mm].
Alignment	If more than one line is entered, the typeface can be set to left, center or right, which also affects the position of the reference point of the text engraving (see the relevant heading below)
Vertical alignment:	Sets the reference point on the centre line or the base line of the first line of text
In-fill color	Color of the paint with which the text engraving should be in-filled or filled. By selecting "No in-fill color" the engraving remains bright.
Font	Selection from a list of engravable fonts
Angle of rotation	Rotation angle of the text engraving around its reference point
Tool	With the tool you can determine the line width of the gravure lines, and thus the basic appearance of the typeface
Automatic selection	Depending on the size and the font, a tool is selected to ensure the font is clearly legible.
Print / In-fill	Determines whether this engraving is to be printed or in-filled. By default, the global setting from the "Front panel properties” dialog box is used.
Place on reverse side	Set the check mark if you want the engraving to be applied to the reverse side of the panel. Please note that for text engravings on the reverse side, the text must be mirrored so that it can be read from left to right when viewed from the reverse side. To mirror the text, enter ‘-1’ as the factor for the X-scaling. In »Front Panel Designer«, the front panel is always displayed and processed from the perspective of the front side.
Do not produce object	If you do not want to engrave a text, but to place it on the front panel for information purposes only, then check this box.

The reference point of a text engraving (red cross) is located by default – corresponding to left-aligned orientation – at half cap height on the vertical left boundary of the first letter of the first line of text.

With right alignment, the reference point is located at half cap height on the vertical right boundary of the last letter (of the first line of text).

With centered alignment, the reference point is located at half cap height centrally between the vertical left boundary of the first letter and the vertical right boundary of the last letter (of any of the lines of text).

The horizontal alignment of the reference point can be set separately: either on the centre line or on the base line of the capital letters (of the first line of text)

Please click on the pictures to enlarge them.

While so-called "one-stroke" fonts generally consist of sans serif ("unadorned") characters, the characters of the so-called "multi-stroke" fonts most certainly have characteristics such as serifs.

In order to achieve such characteristics, design the available milling or engraving lines so that they highlight certain characteristics by overlapping, whereby the lines must always overlap so far that no burrs remain at the end.

For each multi-stroke font there is accordingly a certain text height (or X-scaling), above which a burr inevitably remains. (You can also see this in the preview, if you set the text height high enough with a multi-stroke font.)

As long as a burr remains in the engraving, this cannot be satisfactorily in-filled with paint. To avoid this, you should always select a tool which excludes the formation of burrs with a high level of certainty when using multi-stroke fonts.

You can download a PDF file that lists all the characters (including special characters) which can be displayed in the fonts available in "Front Panel Designer" :

A special character can be replaced in the text by "\xxx" whereby "xxx" stands for the ASCII code of the character, which can for example be taken from the character map of the FPD file (see picture below). The following picture shows the relationship between the characters and ASCII Code for the DIN17 font:

For better illustration, you can download a ZIP file with lots of FPD files, each listing all the characters (including special characters) which can be displayed in the fonts available in "Front Panel Designer" :