PCB silkscreen text - is it always a vector font in a gerber? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 08:44:00 pm
content: It seems like I've seen some PCB's where the font looks much nicer like a truetype font on a PCB - could that have come from a gerber? or did the pcb manufacturer render that directly from another file type? If I produce gerbers in Eagle, it turns the proportional font into a vector one.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:25:30 pm
content: Gerbers are by definition vector files... they are made for controlling plotters. But by increasing resolution and minimizing aperture (thinner pen), it's of course possible to make much finer graphics.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2020, 09:58:39 pm
content: Quote from: alank2 on June 22, 2020, 08:44:00 pmI've never seen a PCB manufacturer change fonts if you give them gerbers. AFAIK, gerber doesn't have native text commands. All text is converted to path information by your CAM exporter so that is where you should look. I think some PCB tools will display text in the CAD view using standard platform font libraries but when it comes time to do CAM export they will fall back on their own internal font rendering. That said, any halfway decent modern tool should allow using arbitrary truetype fonts and convert them to paths for export.If you are sending your boardhouse CAD files instead of gerbers, well you are going to get whatever they decide you get.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:18:30 am
content: Quote from: alank2 on June 22, 2020, 08:44:00 pmJust a little pedantic comment: proportional fontsarevector fonts. What you mean is converting from text to paths, as in, de-textifying it (to use the technical term).

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 07:50:15 am
content: Truetype is a little bit of a pain to interpret, but PCB packages can support it, here is an example of the active development thread on adding them to KiCad, main outstanding things are figuring out all the edge cases around the minimum thickness's,https://forum.kicad.info/t/font-resources/23276/43If you look at any fancier fonts, the thickness is not always consistently above X minimum, and its not meant to be modified to meet those minimums,

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2020, 09:08:37 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on June 23, 2020, 07:50:15 amIndeed, vector fonts are curious creatures, in that they’re not just collections of vector graphics (well, except in PostScript Type 3 fonts, which literally are just collections of EPS graphics), but also can include programmatic instructions on how to render the output. (And not just basic hinting: For example, there are fonts that randomize their appearance on rendering.)

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2020, 08:07:00 pm
content: I guess my question relates to a lot of the pcb's I see pictures of. They have a nice smooth font on them instead of the vector font I usually use. In that case did they not send gerbers to the pcb manufacturer but some other format instead?

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2020, 11:22:07 pm
content: Quote from: alank2 on June 24, 2020, 08:07:00 pmModern laser photoplotters have VERY high resolution, maybe 1000 times finer than the silkscreen can represent. If you want to make really nice graphics and encode it into Gerber format, it can be as smooth and pretty as you could ever want. They use the same software and photoplotter hardware for the silkscreens as for the copper layers. My old CAM software (Protel 99 SE) generates quite nice text by default, and I could whip up something even fancier if I wanted to spend the time.Jon

author: perdrix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2020, 01:19:48 am
content: NI Ultiboard at least supports Windows Truetype and other fonts. So no not all simple vector fonts.David

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2020, 01:30:09 am
content: You might enjoythis flamefestwhich covers limitations and workarounds for rendering complex shapes on PCBs.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2020, 03:27:20 am
content: Quote from: alank2 on June 24, 2020, 08:07:00 pmNo. It’s already been explained to you that Gerber supports it, it’s simply up to the software you use to generate them.