4 Things To Consider Before Digitizing Letters

Digitizing letters is one of the most challenging tasks for embroidery digitizing. Because you need to design each and every letter, including their unique shapes, sizes and heights. Hence, it becomes imperative that you are extra cautious while digitizing letters as any mistake may nullify your entire work with unwanted embellishments and blemishes.

If you want to use a digital process for your personal business or for a brand, there are four factors that can affect the success of this process.

We will now provide you with step-by-step illustrations of each step in detail.

1. Size, width, height

When digitizing letters, size matters. It is always recommended that your writing paper should be no smaller than a quarter of an inch. In addition to size, the width of the column stitch is also important.

There are a few things you need to keep in mind to make your letter unique and readable.

Width of letter

Let's consider that the diameter of the needle is 1 nm, which would be the minimum width of the satin stitch.

The width spacing between letters is intended to be 0.8-1mm.

Size of needle and thread

The needle size used should be small to digitize small letter words with thin threads. You cannot create a satin stitch that is narrower than the stitch used to create the stitch to avoid any consistency in quality. It is recommended that you use an 11 weight line with a 40/75 stitch to digitize lowercase letter items. Depending on the complexity of the project, you can use advanced feature techniques to change this standard to 70/10 stitches and 60 weight thread (25% thickness reduction compared to thread 40).

Height of letters

For some projects, you may underestimate the width, so height is the main factor to analyze. For example, if you apply the technical rule as a rule of thumb, when you want to digitize letters that may contain one or more letters, the height of the capital letters should be 4 millimeters.

If there are more than one letter, the height of each letter should be 5 mm.

2. Avoid bending/twisting/serif letters

It is difficult to work with letters with variable width columns. Maintaining a flash while digitizing serifs or lowercase letters can be risky. A serif is basically a line at the top or bottom of a letter stroke. Especially if you need to digitize on a narrow space, it looks messy and you can lose quality. Always give preference to simplified words over letters with curved edges for digitizing.

There are many free fonts available that you can choose based on your project. Because your preferences are related to the time you spend on this project, it will determine whether the quality of your work is increased or decreased.

3. Proper density of stitch and fabric

"Stitch spacing refers to the density of embroidery."

For example, the higher the density, the more stitches come together. You need to be more careful when you try to compress too many stitches on a small surface. Both very high and very low densities can be problematic.

For example, broken thread, wrinkles, holes in fabric, poor design, etc.

Another important factor is the consideration that stitch density must be similar to the fabric density used for digitizing. The high density of the stitch on the lightweight fabric causes the edges of the digitized letters to snag.

Some alphabets have closed loops, such as o, p, q, etc. These letters require a low density stitch to be digitized in a good way. The standard standard for closed loop space radius is 0.45mm.

Therefore, it is important to diagnose the density problem. When digitizing letters, appropriate density should be set according to the design.

4. Proper underlay

The base map provides the basis for properly digitizing the letters and for stitching the cover. In embroidery, it functions similarly to the human skeletal system. The liner provides a loft that can be raised to cover the stitch when handling soft fabrics. The most familiar types of floor MATS are:

Edge Running underlay (Run along the edge of the letter)

Center run underlay (down through columns)

The edge running base should not support digitization of lowercase letters. Sometimes, you use a stitch that moves across the fabric for engraving to also function as a liner. This is important to know if you are using the right base map. This is only possible if you have enough experience with the passage of time. For example, by applying a rule of thumb:

Letters less than 5 mm in height should not have backing.

Center run liners should be applied to letters with a height range between 6-10 mm.

Letters over 10 mm in height are also sufficient to apply edge running liners.

So these are a few points you should consider when digitizing your letters to avoid any obstacles in the smooth digitizing process. Then, thanks to the high quality of the work, you will leave a deep impression on the audience.

Digitizing letters is not easy. Little oversight can make a big difference. To make your letters look unique, avoid using wavy or distorted letters in your embroidery, which will make it difficult for your audience to read. Letters are difficult to digitize on fabrics such as jackets. It requires a different density and padding variation than soft fabrics. Only experts know how to properly use these key factors to produce high quality letters. Hopefully, this article has helped you figure out the best way to perform lettering.