By Have you been looking for a way to turn your hand lettering into SVGs but you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a monthly subscription? I’ve found a super easy way to do it and it’s all free. This isn’t a sponsored post just something I recently discovered and I think it can help a lot of you! Using the free program, Inkscape, you can take your artwork and easily transform it into cut files!
Just a little FYI: I use Adobe Illustrator to convert my hand lettering into SVGs for cutting with my Silhouette and Glowforge. However, I do pay for the programs so if you’re not down with paying for Adobe Illustrator just yet, give this a shot and see if you like it!
The key here is making your lettering black and using a white background. If you’re using Procreate just make sure you have your brush set to black and 100% opacity. If you’re using ink on paper, be sure to choose black ink and white paper. Save your lettering as a JPG or take a photo of you work and import to your computer.
The program we will use is Inkscape. It’s similar to Adobe Illustrator in many ways but it’s completely free. You can download it for both Mac and PC at http://www.inkscape.org.
To start, I airdropped a JPG from my iPad to my computer. This is just a simple example of “hello summer” that I made using the Procreate Ap with my RLG Calligraphy brush.
Open Inkscape and drop in your JPG. Next, using your keyboard, hold down option + shift + b to bring up the “Trace Bitmap” menu. Here, select “Autotrace” and “Apply”. Your image will be duplicated but the white background will be gone.
Now you have your lettering as a vector and you can delete your original JPG (with the white background).
If you click on the arrow with the dotted line on the left side menu, you will be able to edit each point on your lettering. You can smooth out lines or make areas thicker with this tool. Once you’re happy with how it looks, you’re finished! Just save it as a SVG and import it into your craft machine’s program! You’ll be able to cut out your own hand lettering and make completely custom products!
