Many of the most beautiful fonts that are popular today use more characters than we can easily get out of the keyboard. The fonts has extra squiggles and shapes that can only be found through the Character Map.
I’m going to show you how you most easily find these goodies and get them into the Silhouette Studio so that you can cut out that lovely saying you want on a pillow.
I use Windows 7. If you are using a different version of Windows it can be a little tricky, but patience will solve it I’m sure.
The little program that can display some extra characters is Character Map and the icon is a small key with some mysterious signs on it. This program comes with Windows, so there is no need to install it.
Click the Start menu and in the box labeled Run, type Character Map. When you type in the word you will see several proposals pop up in the list so you do not need to enter the full name. Choose the right program and click on it so that it starts.
(You can also check manually on your start menu and then you will probably find it under Accessories and then System Tools)
Also start Silhouette Studio and select the font you want to use (NOTE !! This works in the same way no matter which application you write in, try Photoshop, Word or another program, the approach’s the same)
Enter your word and leave the text tool still active. Do not move your word or making any other changes. When you have released the Text tool you can’t change the word.
I chose the font Samantha Upright, and I want more squiggles in the text than what’s visible here.
Change programs and bring up Character Map on your screen.
Select the font you used in Silhouette Studio, and then scroll until you find the character you want to use (do not scroll with the mouse wheel at once, that change the font, instead use the scroll bar to the right)
Choose the various characters to better see how they look.
Once you find what you want, choose Select. The character will now appear in the white box. If you want more characters that will follow one another you can choose the next one right away. When you are done, click Copy (Don’t forget to erase the character in the white box if you want another.)
Go back to the Silhouette Studio. Move the cursor (via arrow keys) and erase the letter you want to change. Then press Ctrl + V to paste the new character. The above looks good and much more fun than the first version, right?
Character Map is also very useful if you have a font that’s a DingBat (all letters are a small image). It is easy to find just the image you want to use.
