Lightburn Tutorial – Adding and Using New Fonts

Lightburn comes with great fonts, including a stencil font. However, for special occasions, such as a wedding, adding fonts to Lightburn can make your creations even more unique. Some of these custom fonts feature flourishes and hearts, while others prevent the inner parts of letters from falling out when cut. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to find free fonts online and how to add custom fonts to Lightburn and Inkscape on your PC or Mac.

The internet is full of beautiful things, and fonts are no exception. You can find countless fonts available for free use. These fonts are often free to download and can be used for personal projects without restrictions. However, be cautious when it comes to commercial use! Many fonts don’t allow commercial usage on products you sell. Always check the license agreement.

Some font creators only ask for credit or a small fee for a commercial license, which can range from a few dollars to several hundred. Others may restrict certain usage rights, allowing the font for blogs or print media but not for items sold on platforms like Etsy. Below, I’ll introduce you to my top three font sources.

DaFont.com offers over 87,000 fonts, and the library continues to grow as users contribute their creations. Each font is the property of its author and comes with specific licensing terms, such as freeware (free), shareware (limited use), trial versions, or public domain (free for any use).

For personal use, this means: Free! However, commercial users (e.g., selling products featuring these fonts) need to review the license for each font and may need to pay a fee to the author.

I particularly like DaFont’s category-based organization. For instance, if you’re looking for a stencil font with lowercase letters, you’ll find hundreds of options in the “Stencil” category. The integrated search tool also allows you to preview your own text in all fonts, making it easy to find the perfect font for any occasion.

FontBundles.net is part of DesignBundles.net, a marketplace for laser cutting designs, print templates, and web assets. It offers both paid and free fonts. FontBundles’ licensing model is straightforward and uniform, and one standout feature is that it explicitly allows the commercial use of free fonts for end products.

This means you can use these fonts for laser engraving and sell the resulting products. Members of a subscription plan gain access to exclusive fonts, discounts on bundles, and ongoing discounts on paid fonts.

Envato Elements offers a subscription-based model for digital assets, including fonts, photos, videos, sound effects, and more. With 33,000 fonts available, it targets creators and businesses needing a wide range of assets.

The license is simple: as a member, you get unlimited access to millions of designs, and you only need to register the project on the website. After that, you can use the designs commercially, even after your subscription ends (lifetime license).

Have you found and downloaded the perfect font? Great! Let’s add it to your system so you can use it in all your programs, including Lightburn, Inkscape, Word, and more.

To install a font on Windows, click the Windows icon in the taskbar or press the Windows key on your keyboard. Go to Settings (gear icon), then select Personalization and Fonts.

In the “Fonts” menu, drag and drop the font file (*.ttf or *.otf) into the designated area. Alternatively, click “Browse and Install Fonts” to select the file manually. After a few seconds, the font will be installed and available in all programs. You may need to restart some applications, like Inkscape, for the font to appear.

On a Mac, use the built-in app Font Book, which lists all installed fonts on your system. Add new fonts by clicking the + icon in the top left or by dragging and dropping the font file (*.ttf or *.otf) into the app. Once installed, the font will be available system-wide. As with Windows, you may need to restart some programs for the font to appear.

This concludes the tutorial on adding new fonts to Lightburn and other programs. With the right fonts, your designs can become even more personal and professional!