Xenetech Font Question

[Troy Cooper]

I recently received a call from a prospective client to have some small Rowmark tags made. The client's previous supplier did rotary engraving but recently passed away so they started looking for a replacement supplier and happened across my path.

My challenge is that I am currenly only equiped to do laser engraving and it turns out that they need me to exactly duplicate the font used on previous jobs which I was able to determine was a Xenetech Gothic 97 font (see attached sample photo).

I was able to locate the .fnt file for this font but I assume that there is no way for me to use it in Corel like a TrueType font.

Is anyone aware of a substantially similar TrueType font that I could use or if there is a way of using a .fnt file with Corel? The numbers 2 & 3 appear to have very distinctive features. Any ideas or input would much appreciated as this client has indicated that they are looking to pass all of their work to me if I can duplicate what they were getting before.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Troy

[Scott Shepherd]

Troy, I can help, but I'm not at the office right now. I have this same issue and have overcome it, and might have a shortcut for you. There is no easy fix that I know of. I believe the font is something like "Gothic 97" and it's not a true type font. The old Xenetech systems didn't work like that. They had their own fonts you had to buy and they didn't copy over to other problems, that I am aware of. I'll PM you when I get back to the office.

[Roy Brewer]

I was able to locate the .fnt file for this font but I assume that there is no way for me to use it in Corel like a TrueType font.

Troy,
An excellent solution would be to buy a Xenetech. Or, buy the Xenetech software which will print to your laser just like any other software, but use the Xenetech fonts. Xenetech is very proud of their software; you'll need to contact your local distributor to get firm pricing.

New Hermes has a few on their fonts that they have turned into true type fonts (they are very proud of them and even worse, very few of their associates know that they have them.

[Keith Outten]

Roy,

Are you aware of the bug Xenetech has in their print driver?
We purchased an XLT-1325-60 about a year ago at Christopher Newport University and the tech that installed our machine found the print bug when they installed our machine. I have discussed this many times with the Xenetech tech support people and their President and we were promised a driver update in March of 2007....haven't seen it yet.

Every time I change the drawing size I have to switch to another printer and then back to the Xemetech to get the drawing size to change. It's not major but it is a pain, for $35,000 you would think we should have received a print driver that works properly. I have given up on ever receiving a print driver from Xenetech that works with Windows XP and Corel Draw.

There is a second flaw in their driver that is so basic I can't believe they can't fix it, the laser will vector cut outside before it cuts inside shapes. When I cut letters and numbers for ADA signs I lose a considerable number because they fall down before the center is cut. I discussed this with their tech support and the answer was "We can't make our driver vector cut inside shapes first". Even my old Legend 24 will do this so it isn't anything new

Xenetech has their new Viper Suite but I think it only works with Vista. The University controls our computer upgrades and Vista has not been approved for employees to use and it could be a very long time before that happens.

A few weeks ago the right side hydraulic cylinder that holds the top up failed and hydraulic oil leaked all over the optics and I lost an entire days work cleaning up the mess and I lost a dozen ADA door plaques. Fortunately there wasn't any damage done to the machine but it was just another point of frustration to deal with. At this point I am unsure if I should install the new cylinder that Xenetech sent me unless I could fashion some kind of drain shield in case it happens again. The XLT-1325 has some great features but it has some drawbacks that would cause me to reconsider my decision if I had the opportunity to step back in time.

Troy...read and heed my friend.

.

[Troy Cooper]

Yesterday, out of curiousity, I contacted Xenetech to find out what one of their rotary engraving systems would cost as I have never looked into it before.

I was a somewhat surprised at how much the smaller rotary engraving equipment would cost (though more from a "I don't have that kind of money right now!" perspective). They also told me about the option of purchasing the Xenetech Graphic Workstation software with the ability to output to my Epilog. That too was much more money than I can part with at the moment.

They did give me their local reps contact info and it turns out he's within 10 miles of me so I may look into it further just for future reference.

Thanks for your advice as well Keith. It's always good to hear the unvarnished experiences of real world users to help a person make an informed decision.

For now I am off to ponder my options. Have a great weekend everyone!

[Robert Rosensteel]

Hey Keith have you any problems cutting circles? My Circles come out higher on one side at the end of the cut on top.(1/16 off) Called Xenetech and they suggested to turn the circle 90 degrees. Did that and it is a little better, but its not a true circle. Also same problem with ovals, hearts,etc. I am using corel 12. The Xenetech software cut a circle fine. Its just that I perfer using corel its easy to import than Xenetech for me and I find it hard to use. And have you used Corel X3 on your laser wondering if this will work better than 12? What works better for you for software just thinking if I should look in to training with Xenetech?
Thanks Robert

[Mark Winlund]

I am a bit surprised at hearing about the problems with Xenetech. As some of you may know, the founder of that company, Jay Hoffpauir died a few years ago. I suspect that some of the fire went out after he was gone.

That being said, I have used their software and equipment for more than 20 years, and find, for the most part, that it works well. Jay was an innovater, and many of the features he thought up are now taken for granted with all engraving systems. About the only person that deserves more credit in this area is Will Dahlgren (also gone).

Engraving software has a very limited market, and as such, problems do creep in, and don't get fixed quickly. In the early days, Jay had one programmer... I spent many hours with her on the phone, trying to resolve bugs.

Regards, Mark

[Roy Brewer]

Are you aware of the bug Xenetech has in their print driver?

Keith,

}}} This is not an official response. This represents a distributor's viewpoint. {{{

I am painfully aware of the two issues you mention. In contrast to Xenetech's history, because coding of hardware drivers is such a unique programming challenge, we jobbed out the task assuming we could bring the system to the market faster (which we did). However, struggling to get the external programmers to learn what they needed to correct this has been much more annoying to Xenetech than to their users. Hence, we've gone back to our roots and started coding the driver from the ground up in-house. I do not expect this to be completed anytime in the near future.

In the meantime, let me tell you how I mitigate the annoyance. Add another Xenetech printer from the Control Panel. I name mine ~XeLaser1 and ~XeLaser2; the "~" (or something similar) will alphabetically position these at the top of your printer list (assuming you, like me, have many printers from which to select). Now after making the change in the driver settings, instead of switching to another printer & back, select the other Xe printer and you're set to Print.

[Scott Shepherd]

I know it's unpopular to say things about Xenetech because there are some hard cord Xenetech people out there who worked with Jay for many years. I didn't know Jay, never met him, don't know anything about him, other than the personal accounts that he was brilliant. I believe that to be true for sure.

However, after watching the way they handled their business and particularly their support, we didn't even consider them in the laser buying process. It's things exactly like what Keith and Roy are saying. Keith's got a problem, their solution is to "work around it" until they get a chance to fix it, which will be years.

Let me make my point perfectly clear to all laser manufacturers who have issues. We didn't pay the prices we paid to have machines that we have to use "work arounds" for. If you plan on us having to use "work arounds" then let's start by knocking the price back to a machine that's still in beta testing, not one in production.

It makes me FURIOUS to see manufacturers who think it's perfectly acceptable to let you use work arounds to keep their machines running on a daily basis. I hate to tell the Xenetech folks, but there are machines out there on the market that don't require work arounds, so it's clearly not something that people can't overcome.

I don't care about the particulars. I didn't buy a machine from you to learn about your resource issues or bad code or whatever. Your sales team representing your company as having a start of the art, top of the line system. That's what you sold, but not what you delivered.

Sorry for the rant

[Matt Wheeler]

Back on subject - Take a look at www.dafont.com and see if there is a TTF that is similar.

[Scott Shepherd]

I tried hard to source this font. I used whatthefont on it and spend many hours looking at font sites. It's just slightly different than most everything I could find. And different in areas that made it noticeable. If it's one out there, it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

[Matt Wheeler]

If I had the time I would make it for you, but too busy at the moment. If you want it to match exact, you need to find someone who can copy the text from xenetech and put it in corel. There are 2 ways to paste it into corel. One makes the font curves, the other pastes it as text. Once you have it in corel as curves, you can make the font using Corel's true type font making tools. It'd take a while, but it would be a match.

[Dan Hintz]

Troy,

Try "BureauGrotesque FiveOne" or "Bulldog"... neither has the rounded ends that comes naturally with a large cutting bit, but you may be able to modify them appropriately.