Opening, Importing and Saving Images

Transcription

1 Opening, Importing and Saving Images This tutorial will help you to become familiar with how to open, import and save the various file types that the Make The Cut! (MTC!) software supports. You can find these options either under the File menu on the menu bar or on the Main bar under the tab sections. I will explain both methods as we move throughh this tutorial. Section 1: Fonts: Using The Installed Fonts Included On Your Computer To use the fonts already on your computer in your Windows Fonts folder, just click on the Text and Fonts tab on the Main Bar on the right side of your screen. Click on the drop-down arrow as shown in Illustration 4.1 and you can scroll through all of the fonts that are included. Click on the one you are interested in. You can preview what the fonts look like in the preview window on this tab. Illustration 4.1 If you are choosing an image from the font you can double click the image and it will be placed on your mat. You can then use this image to continue designing in MTC! In illustration 4.2, I chose an image from the Webdings font and used the shadow option under the Shape Magic tool bar with this font image to create the background for the cut. 1

2 Illustration 4.2 To create words with the fonts, choose your font from the selection. There are two methods to get the letters onto the mat. One method is to individually select your letters; double click on each and it is placed on the mat in this manner. This can be time consuming if you have a lot of letters. As you continue to click on the letters they will be placed on the mat as a group. You can then use the Shape Magic option to Split the letters to move them individually. Illustration 4.3 The second method is to click on the Add a group of characters button. This will bring up an Add text group box where you are able to type in the word(s) you need. Once done, click on the add button to place it on the mat. This method also places the words typed as a group on the mat. So the split method will need to be done to separate the letters if you choose to arrange them differently on the mat. See illustration 4.4. Illustration 4.4 2

3 Downloading Fonts From The Internet To Import In Make The Cut! You can find all types of fonts or dingbat (image) fonts on the internet just type in fonts or free fonts in your search engine and it will bring up a lot of options to choose from. MTC! supports only the True Type fonts. You will be able to recognize these fonts with the TT symbol. When you add a font to this software program from a saved file, they are only installed temporarily. This prevents having to many fonts loading when you open the program. This will also bog down other software programs as well if they are saved in the Windows Font folder. To save fonts and dingbats downloaded from the internet, create two folders in My Documents to save them to. Name one of the folders TT Fonts and the other Dingbats. Then you can create sub-folders within those folders that break down the different categories of fonts and/or dingbats downloaded. Some examples of categories for dingbats could be Animals, Cartoons, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Weddings, etc. To download a new font file, search the internet. There are lots of free font sites available for use. Once you have found the font you like, you will need to click on the download button. Illustration 4.5 An open or save dialog box will pop up. Click on the save button and then browse to find your Fonts or Dingbat folder in your My Documents. Then click save. It is then saved to this folder making it easy to find the font. Most of the fonts are saved in a zip file. You will need to open the Zip file by double clicking on it. Once the Zip program opens, click on the TTF file and click on extract. See illustrations

4 Illustration 4.6 A pop up box will appear, click on browse to find the folder you created to extract it to. Once you have found it, click on okay to extract. It is now ready to use. Illustration 4.7 To import the new font/dingbat into MTC!, click on the Add font from TTF file button on the Text and Fonts tab. This will open a pop up box. Locate the folder you have saved the new font in. Once you have it, you can see the new dingbat font. Double click on it to add and open the new font or dingbat for use. Click on the font or image to place it on your mat. 4

5 Illustration 4.8 Remember, when you close the MTC! Program and then reopen it, the font will not be there. To use it again you will need to do this step again. This may seem like extra work, but in the long run it is better for your computer and all of the software programs that use TT fonts. If you want to see what the font looks like before you actually load it into MTC! Click on the Add font from TTF file button to open the search box. Find the folders with your fonts/dingbats. Then left click once on the file, it shows a temporary picture of it on the bottom of the box so you can see what you are looking for. Illustration 4.9 MTC! does not tell you what font was used in a project by just opening it or clicking on the font. However, there is a note pad that you can type in what fonts/images were used as you are creating your file. To find this go to View on the Menu Bar, then click on Notes Bar or click on the Notes Icon button. This will be saved with your file when you save it. Illustration

6 When a font or dingbat character is used in a design and placed on the mat, the glyph is converted to a Graphics Path object meaning that it has no knowledge of where it came from. So when you send a created file to another person, they do not have to have the same font installed to be able to open it. However, if it is saved as an.mtc file extension they will need to have the MTC! program to open it. When using the fonts, experiment with the bold and italic buttons as well. They can change the way the font looks. See illustration Illustration 4.11 Saving Your Creations Made With Fonts/Dingbats Once you have your font images created on your mat the next step that you may want to do is save the file so that you will have it for future use. To do this you will need to click on File on the menu bar then Save As. The Save As box will appear, locate the folder that you want to save it in by using the drop down arrow to find it on your computer. I have created a folder called Make The Cut in My Documents with sub-folders. This is where I will want to save my file. Illustration 4.12 You DO NOT want to save any files in the actual Make The Cut! application. When you do any of the available updates with the newer versions it will erase all files you would have saved in this program. 6

7 Next give your file a name that you will remember and click the Save button to save it. These files will be saved as a MTC! file with the.mtc extension behind the file name. These files can only be opened with the MTC! program. Illustrations 4.13 Now when you want to use this file again, go to the folder you have saved it in and find the file. To open it either double click on the file itself or single click once on the file and it will place the file name in the box then click on the open button to open it. It is there ready to be cut. Illustration 4.14 I hope this tutorial will help you to understand how to open, import and save font/dingbat files. For more information on how to use this function, please visit the Make The Cut! Forum website: 7