Text to Laser

Text to Laser is the quick way to turn words or icons into a still or animated laser drawing. Choose from 1500+ Google Fonts, 32 Hershey single-stroke faces, and 900+ Material Symbols, then download ILDA, continue designing in Animation Studio, or use Live output.

Step-by-Step Workflow

Text changes replace the current drawing as one operation. Editing or clearing the field immediately removes the previous laser geometry and disables its export/continue actions while the current word is prepared. In Live mode, that empty transition sends a safety blank instead of leaving the prior word on the projector.

Font Library

Over 1500 Google Fonts are available, organized by categories:

• Sans-serif — Clean, geometric fonts that work best for laser output
• Serif — Traditional fonts with fine detail (may need simplification)
• Display — Bold, decorative fonts designed for headlines
• Monospace — Even-spaced character widths
• Handwriting — Script-style fonts (complex, use sparingly)

Use the search box to find a font by name, or browse by category.

Hershey (Single Stroke)

Below the font library sits Hershey (Single Stroke) — 32 vector faces drawn as single strokes rather than filled letterforms. A normal font gives the laser an outline, so the beam travels down one side of every stroke and back up the other. A Hershey face gives it the stroke itself, drawn once. Fewer points per word means more of your scanner's budget left for detail, brightness, or a longer line of text.

The faces are grouped by script:

• Roman & Sans — Roman Simplex, Duplex, and Triplex; Times Roman, Bold, Italic, and Italic Bold; Futura Light and Medium
• Script — Script Simplex, Script Complex, Cursive
• Gothic — Gothic English, German, and Italian, each with a Triplex weight
• Greek — Greek, Greek Simplex, Greek Complex, Times Greek
• Cyrillic — Cyrillic, Cyrillic Complex
• Symbols — Symbolic, Markers, Math Upper, Math Lower, Music, Astrology, Meteorology, Japanese Kana

Search by name, or scroll the groups. Every card draws its preview with the face's own strokes, so what you see on the card is what the laser draws.

Simplex, Duplex, and Triplex are stroke weights: Simplex draws each letter with one line, Duplex and Triplex add a second and third parallel line for a heavier look — at a proportional cost in points.

The Greek, Cyrillic, and symbol faces are laid out on the keyboard positionally, so typing A gives you that face's first capital — Alpha in a Greek face, A in Cyrillic, a symbol in the symbol faces. Type ordinary letters and read the preview to find the character you want.

Material Symbols Icons

In addition to text, you can load any of 900+ Material Symbols icons directly:

1. Use the icon search directly below the font browser
2. Browse by category, or search by keyword (e.g., "star", "speaker", "wifi")
3. Click to load the icon — it renders as vector outlines, not raster

Material Symbols icons are designed for clarity at small sizes, making them well-suited for laser output.

Letter Style and Modifiers

Font Outline keeps the selected Google Font as a traced outline. Center Trace keeps the same font but draws every stroke once along its center — the right choice for thin and handwriting typefaces, whose outlines otherwise double-draw each stroke as two nearly touching lines. Handwriting changes the source geometry to BeamTracer's single-stroke alphabet for supported letters, numbers, spaces, and basic punctuation. It accepts up to 18 characters and automatically fits the word to the canvas. Icons always use their own vector outlines.

Spotlights clips the laser text through one to four moving gobos. Choose a circle, square, heart, star, or diamond, then set the motion to Fixed, Orbit, Figure Eight, or Meander. Turn on Outline gobo to draw the moving boundary over the revealed text, then choose its outline color, including white. Move Speed and Randomness shape a continuous path that returns smoothly to its start, so playback and ILDA export loop without a visible jump or pause.

Sweep reveals or erases the lettering with a moving contact front. Its duration is set in seconds. Bar style draws one continuous line without point markers. Trace style uses leading contact dots by default; Trailing dots adds a second dwell accent when you want one.

Trace Reveal defaults to one leading laser dot moving along the exact outline. Dot intensity sets its 0–255 color level, while Keep laser trace optionally retains the accumulated outline. In Video to Laser, the matching projected-image mask keeps revealing behind that temporary dot. Add Contact FX after any moving modifier when a projected source should show temporary glow or sparks; the effect layer never adds laser points.

Quick Starts are not separate animation types. Each one creates an ordinary, editable modifier chain:

• Write sequences and reveals the source strokes.
• Tracer runs bright comet tails along the paths.
• Glitch applies repeatable path breakup and matching projected-video masks.
• Sparkle adds sparse moving accents.
• Pulse breathes brightness downward and back without a full-frame spike.
• Neon Ink combines Trace Reveal, Color Flow, and Ink Settle.

Every modifier card includes Play to restart the complete effect chain from the beginning and Reset to restore that modifier's original settings and remove its audio bindings. CLEAR beside Quick Starts removes the whole chain, and SAVE PRESET / LOAD write and restore it as a shareable file — the same controls, in the same order, as SVG to Laser, Video to Laser, and Animation Studio.

Use Trace Reveal's Stroke order, Stroke stagger, and Speed variation to shape the drawing rhythm. The preview, downloaded ILDA, and Live output follow the same modifier settings. SVG to Laser offers the same modifiers and Quick Starts for vector artwork. Audio binding is available in Video to Laser Live and Animation Studio.

Convert or Live

Convert creates a repeatable ILDA animation. Use Continue in Animation Studio when the text should become one element in a larger composition. The editable layer keeps its color, modifier settings, and full animation duration, including Hold After Effect.

Live begins in software Preview. To use hardware, choose a supported DAC and connect it — the moment it connects, a safety dock appears along the bottom edge of the app carrying the device status, Arm, Blackout, and Start. It is part of the app frame: collapsing the sidebar or closing the Laser Output section can never hide it, and it stays on screen through an unexpected disconnect until you deliberately disconnect. Confirm the two-step Arm, then press Start. In Preview (no hardware) the same controls stay inside the Laser Output panel.

Your projector stays connected while you work. Collapsing the sidebar, closing the Laser Output section, or switching to Convert no longer ends the connection — the device and your chosen output stay exactly as you left them. Switching to Convert does stop output, because Convert has no live frames to send; press Start again when you return to Live.

The Laser Output panel's always-visible OUTPUT section has a Power limit slider (0–100%) that caps this output's brightness: it combines with the beam color you chose — the same control OSC-1 and Video to Laser Live carry. While hardware is attached, the safety dock carries a second POWER slider at its left edge driving the same limit, so the master dimmer is always in reach mid-show. Power limit is remembered across reloads.

The OUTPUT section also carries Scale (25–100%, remembered) — the fraction of the full scan field the frame draws at, the projection-size dial for a venue — and Galvo speed (5–150%, remembered): how hard the scanner mirrors are driven. 100% is the tuned default; lower draws the same shapes more slowly and gently — the right direction for entry-level scanners — at the cost of refresh rate, and higher is crisper on premium scanners. Alongside it sits a Frame rate slider (1–60 fps) — the same frame rate the animation section edits, surfaced where the output trade-off lives: the per-frame point budget is the scanner rate divided by the frame rate, so lowering it buys more points per frame (finer detail) and raising it reduces flicker.

The panel's Advanced section holds Corner brightness (0–100%, default 10%, remembered): the beam slows through corners to draw them sharp, and a slow beam deposits more light — this sets how bright those moments stay. Lower it until corner dots disappear; raise it if you like corners reading as accents.

While a DAC is connected, the Advanced section also shows Color delay (−300 to +300 µs): it shifts color timing against scanner position so corners and line ends register on real projectors, whose galvos lag the color channels. It starts at +120 µs — the default — and the number you dial is remembered per DAC, so each of your devices keeps its own calibration. If letters show gaps at stroke ends, raise it; if blanked jumps draw faint lines, lower it.

Keep your projector's physical limits, masks, interlocks, and controlled beam area in place; software does not replace venue laser-safety procedures.

Beam Color

Use the color palette to set the beam color — the preview and export both use it. Output is always ILDA Format 5 (2D True Color); if you need Format 0/1 for legacy hardware, open the result in the ILDA Viewer and convert via its Export ILDA dialog.

The ILDA format does not store a playback rate. Set Export Rate to the rate you will use in your player so the file's blanked settling uses the intended timing.

Design Tips

Checking Safety

Text to Laser doesn't display a safety report of its own — click Open in ILDA Viewer to analyze the result with the Viewer's safety report, stress heat map, and scanner-load tools before playing it on hardware. See Understanding PPS for more on scanner limits.

Further Reading