Is it Good to be a Dingbat? (or doing the happy dance)

Long, long ago in a time now considered ancient by many of you, there was a TV show called All in the Family with Archie Bunker. He had very little patience for his wife Edith and often called her a “dingbat”.  That was not a nice use of the word and it was absolutely FORBIDDEN in my home. Thankfully, the term dingbat has become an acceptable term due to the popularity of dingbat fonts.

Dingbat fonts are fonts that use shapes and designs instead of letters and numbers. Type an A and you might get a candy cane, type B and you see a reindeer. I entered “dingbat fonts” in my Google™ search window and came up with several dingbat font sites. I was really surprised at the variety of fonts available. I even found SpongeBob™ and Winnie the Pooh™ dingbats. The Dutch Tile here was made using a Dutchmen font and a POrnaments font.

When I find a new dingbat font I want to do a happy dance! I have to admit that, for me, dingbat fonts are like a treasure hunt. In every dingbat font some images are good and others are bad but quite often I find a real gem among them.  Since I can never have enough cutting files, every dingbat font I find means several more shapes and figures for my collection. Plus, most dingbat fonts are free!

Dingbat fonts come in a ready-to-cut format so I don’t need to do any auto tracing in order to be able to cut them. That can save a lot of time and effort. You do need to be aware that some dingbat fonts need fixing to be more cutter friendly. If you are new to the Inspiration, I recommend you look for dingbats that are solid, silhouette shapes or very simple designs. The more artistic designs usually need a bit more TLC to be cuttable.

Don’t forget that dingbats are technically text so when you want to make changes to them you will need to use the Convert Text to Path function. Sometimes it is more advantageous to leave the dingbats as text.  Then you can use a dingbat with the Fit Text to Path function to create a curved line of hearts, puppies or whatever your heart desires.

I have made a video showing how to find and use dingbat fonts. I have come up with a few tricks to make using the fonts easier so you will want to be sure and watch it. Click on the links below or go to the Video Library. The tutorial can be found in the Fundamentals section. As an added bonus I am giving you my Dingbat Font Template so that you can see what images are available on any dingbat font.