Export text as lines, not shapes.
A lightweight browser studio for 41 stroke-based SVG fonts. Typeset, inspect, and export clean centerline vector paths ready for AxiDraw, pen plotters, and computational vector art.
See the difference on paper
Type below to see how a plotter draws closed outlines vs. pure centerline paths
The outline trap: Standard fonts are closed 2D shapes. A plotter pen traces both the inside and outside perimeter, leaving an awkward hollow shell instead of a real pen stroke.
Pure centerline path: The pen drops down, draws the letterform in a single fluid motion, and lifts up. Clean, fast, and authentic on physical paper.
Why plotters struggle with standard typography
Every font installed on your computer was designed for raster screens or pixel printers. A physical pen works completely differently.
Closed Shapes vs. Open Paths
TrueType and OpenType fonts are closed geometric loops built to be filled with solid black pixels. But a physical pen is a single point of contact—it cannot "fill" anything without traveling back and forth hundreds of times.
The Clumsy Workarounds
If you don't fill outline text, your plotter draws hollow bubble-like letters. If you do hatch-fill them, the dense parallel lines take forever to plot, chew through delicate paper fibers, and bleed ink on corners.
The Centerline Solution
Single-line fonts solve this at the root. Every character is defined as a pure, open vector trajectory. One downstroke, one loop, one clean gesture. Fast to draw, mathematically clean, and authentic on paper.
Three focused tools for your vector workflow
Everything runs right in your browser with zero installation, zero dependencies, and complete offline privacy.
Specimen Catalog ↗
Browse, search, and compare all 41 fonts side-by-side. Test custom specimen phrases, filter by style, and find the right aesthetic for your next plot.
- Compare 41 fonts in parallel
- Search by name, author, or style
- Quick phrase presets (Pangram, Quotes)
Vector Studio ↗
The main composition canvas. Typeset multi-line prose or poetry with markdown formatting, pick physical paper sizes, adjust pen stroke widths, and export.
- Markdown headers, lists & quotes
- Real paper presets (A4, A5, 5x7 in, Square)
- Export clean SVG or 300 DPI PNG
Glyph Inspector ↗
A precision vector drafting board. Inspect typographic baselines (y=0), cap-heights, advance widths, coordinates, and raw vector vertex points.
- Interactive vector point inspect
- Ascent, descent & cap-height guides
- 1-click raw SVG path 'd' copy
A tribute to Dr. Allen V. Hershey & Evil Mad Scientist
In 1967, Dr. Allen Vincent Hershey at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory created the original Hershey vector fonts to render clean typographic text on vector cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) and early flatbed pen plotters (like CalComp and HP machines). Because early hardware could only draw point-to-point pulses, he digitized each character onto a Cartesian grid using straight line segments.
Decades later, Windell Oskay and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories modernized and expanded these stroke fonts for modern makers in the Hershey Text v3 project, released under the open SIL Open Font License.
This project packages all 41 fonts into a modern, offline-ready web suite so plotter owners and vector artists can typeset, inspect, and export clean path typography without wrestling with command-line scripts or Inkscape extensions.
Ready to typeset your next plotter piece?
All 41 fonts are loaded in-memory. Zero installation, zero accounts, and 100% free.