Constraining text to the length of a line

I am producing name tags using variable text feature to import information from a CSV file. Sometimes the name is too long and needs to be constrained to fit in the name badge. I have searched and not found a way to do this. I don’t want to stretch the text if it will fit but need to keep the height of the text the same and kern the text if is longer than the line.

I don’t think there’s anything like that will both not stretch and also not change the height, limited to only reduction of kerning.

If height reduction is okay then consider using the highlighted tool while holding shift key.

image

The problem occurs when the text from the csv file is longer than the badge width. I cannot alter the text manually.

I’m not aware of a way of dynamically changing kerning with CSV merge.

I believe you’d have to bake the text and manipulate manually to get the level of control that you’re looking for.


Maybe this explains it better.

That diagram is what I understood. You can “bake” the text from the CSV file and manually make these changes but I don’t know of any way to dynamically specify this behavior.

In LightBurn, when you set up your variable text, you can select the variable text element, and go into Shape Properties. Here you can set the “Max Width” of your text. It will shrink the text if it’s longer than the max width you have set:

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After reading @sutick’s reply and reviewing your screenshot I realized I did in fact not understand what you were asking.

You specified that you wanted kerning changes but I can see from the screenshot that you’re okay with shrinking the horizontal width of the characters. I was stuck with the notion that you only wanted to change the distance between letters.

@sutick’s suggestion has you covered.

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That is exactly what I was looking for. just did not see it while setting up. Thanks for your response.

Thank you. I missed that feature while looking at the documentation.

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