Single line fonts for LightBurn

Ordinary fonts describe the outline of each letter, because print fills that outline with ink. A laser does not fill anything in Line mode: it traces whatever path it is given. Give it a normal font and it traces around every letter, so you get slow, hollow, double-walled text. Fill mode solves the hollowness by rastering back and forth hundreds of times, which turns a two-minute job into twenty. A single line font, or a single-line file of your words, gives the laser one centerline per stroke instead. It burns in one pass and looks like real engraving.

The import route is the cleanest

LightBurn imports SVG and DXF directly: File > Import, place the words, set the layer to Line, done. The files this page generates are true open paths, so the beam travels each stroke exactly once, and the text arrives at real size (the letter height you chose, in millimetres). This route also works when the words are in your own handwriting, which no SHX file can offer. If you would rather keep editing text inside LightBurn, install one of the free single line fonts instead and use the text tool in Line mode.

What about SHX fonts?

SHX is AutoCAD's old shape-font format, and LightBurn supports it precisely because SHX fonts can hold true single-stroke letters. They work, and for a technical drawing look they are great. The catch is the selection: a handful of decades-old engineering faces, nothing personal, nothing script. Converting a font you already love with the font to single line converter or writing it yourself in the handwriting font generator gets you the same single-pass speed with letters that are actually yours.

Hatch fill: solid-looking text at vector speed

Sometimes you want text that reads as solid, not a hairline. Instead of switching to slow raster Fill, choose the hatch option above: the letters are packed with parallel score lines your laser runs at full vector speed. It reads as a fill from arm's length and finishes in a fraction of the time.