Fonts for Laser Engraving
Choosing typefaces, weights, and sizes that survive the engraving process and remain readable on a finished cockpit panel.
Laser engraving on paint-coated acrylic works by burning away a thin layer of material. Strokes that are too thin — under roughly 0.3 mm at the engraved surface — either disappear completely or produce a rough, unreadable edge. This eliminates most body-text and display fonts designed for screens or print.
Real aircraft panel legends use a small family of fonts consistently: bold, condensed, sans-serif typefaces with uniform stroke widths and no decorative elements. These survive manufacturing tolerances, low-light cabin conditions, and direct sun — the same properties that make them work well on laser-engraved home cockpit panels.
The rule is simple: bold weight, square or condensed sans-serif, no serifs, no thin strokes, all caps.
Simulated engraved panel. Top two rows show recommended bold square-sans fonts. Bottom row shows a thin-weight serif — strokes become invisible after engraving at panel scale.
| Font | Weight | Why it works | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eurostile Extended | Bold / Heavy | Square terminals, uniform stroke, very close to the font used on real 737 / A320 panels | Commercial (Adobe, MyFonts) |
| Helvetica Neue Condensed | Bold (75) | Used on many real aircraft instruments and panels; neutral, legible at small sizes | Commercial (Adobe, Linotype) |
| Arial Narrow Bold | Bold | Free Helvetica substitute; heavier stroke than regular Arial; widely available on all systems | Free — bundled with Windows / macOS |
| Liberation Sans Narrow Bold | Bold | Open-source Arial Narrow equivalent; good for open-source design workflows | Free — Google Fonts / open source |
| Barlow Condensed ExtraBold | ExtraBold (800) | Modern condensed sans; clean geometry, excellent stroke weight at cockpit sizes; already used on this website | Free — Google Fonts |
| Orbitron Bold | Bold / Black | Square, technical aesthetic; works well for digital readout labels and warnings | Free — Google Fonts |
| Font type | Problem |
|---|---|
| Serif fonts (Times, Georgia, Garamond) | Thin serifs and variable stroke widths — the thin parts vanish after engraving, leaving uneven, broken letterforms |
| Thin / Light / Ultralight weights | Strokes under 0.3 mm engrave inconsistently — letters look broken or disappear entirely, especially at small sizes |
| Script / handwriting fonts | Connecting strokes and varying widths make them unreadable; they also look wrong on a cockpit panel |
| Decorative / display fonts | Ornamental details are lost in the engraving process; the result looks noisy and amateurish |
| Mixed case body text | Real aircraft legends are all-caps. Mixed case is harder to read at a glance under cockpit lighting conditions |
Sizes below are given in points at 1:1 scale in your CAD / vector tool, assuming the laser file is exported at actual panel dimensions. At 1:1 scale, 1 pt ≈ 0.353 mm.
| Use | Size (pt) | Approx mm | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main system label (e.g. LANDING GEAR) | 18–24 pt | 6.4–8.5 mm | Primary identifier; readable from 1 m in dim lighting |
| Secondary legend (e.g. SPEED BRAKE) | 14–18 pt | 4.9–6.4 mm | Sub-system labels next to switches or encoders |
| Sub-legend (e.g. ARM / DISARM) | 10–12 pt | 3.5–4.2 mm | Position labels for toggle switches; keep bold weight |
| Switch position label (e.g. ON / OFF) | 8–10 pt | 2.8–3.5 mm | Minimum practical size; test on scrap before committing |
| Caution / warning text | 7–8 pt | 2.5–2.8 mm | Borderline — only use at this size if space is critical; always test first |
| Setting | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Case | ALL CAPS always | Matches real aircraft panels; more legible at small sizes because ascenders and descenders are eliminated |
| Letter spacing (tracking) | +5 % to +15 % of font size | Slightly open tracking prevents adjacent strokes merging at small sizes and gives the legend a more professional, airy appearance |
| Word spacing between labels | 3–4 × the letter spacing | Separate legends on the same line need enough gap to read as distinct items under cockpit lighting |
| Minimum stroke width in CAD | ≥ 0.4 mm at 1:1 | Thinner strokes are within the beam width of many diode lasers and engrave inconsistently |
| Laser type | Typical beam spot | Minimum safe text size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CO₂ (40–80 W) | 0.1–0.2 mm | 7 pt (2.5 mm) | Best for acrylic; clean edges; faster than diode for large panels |
| Diode (5–20 W, 450 nm) | 0.05–0.15 mm compressed | 8–9 pt (2.8–3.2 mm) | Capable of fine detail at low speed; beam shape can cause slight stroke asymmetry — test at each text orientation |
| Fibre laser | 0.02–0.05 mm | 5–6 pt (1.8–2.1 mm) | Extremely fine detail possible; typically used for metal engraving not acrylic |
- Design legends in Fusion 360 or Inkscape at 1:1 real-world scale
- Convert all text to paths / outlines before exporting DXF — eliminates font substitution issues in LightBurn
- Export a test strip with one of each label at each size used on the panel — engrave on the same material and paint batch as the final panel
- Inspect the test strip at arm's length under your cockpit's ambient lighting before committing to the full panel
- Adjust speed and power in LightBurn until the engraved text is clean, sharp, and uniformly bright when lit from behind