That worked! And I'm glad to help.

Ahhhh! I do not own a smart phone! Colin, is there a way that you could put a link to your PayPal account into this topic? While doing a search I found someone who had done just that. here is the link to that example. http://209.68.14.80/tipjar.htm

Hi Colin. I'm feeling sorry and glad for you at the same time. I just need to clear it with my wifey first but I'll be sending you a little something tomorrow. Hope everything shakes out in your favor soon.

Oh. I'll see if the true type font is given over and if not I will try the chook. Thanks

I think that I was a little unclear. one piece will have one name, the next piece will have another name, etc. etc. So seventy presentation pieces seventy different names.

I've been tasked with engraving presentation gifts for a company. The first problem is that I need to use a proprietary font. I think that if they can get me the font in true type that I can use it directly in Mastercam, if not it's going to be a rats nest. There are seventy names and five different text strings to use and I am thinking that I will need to use a macro to call the different names. That is complicated enough. Any comments or suggestions?

I have my backup directory on the company server so no worries about filling up my hard drive.

Any one here on the Forum ever cut 232 - AF or SPRF - 38 friction lining material?

Go into configuration and change the background to white but don't save it. It's only a one time fix but it saves time and frustration.

I've been at this career since 81. It's been the most challenging and rewarding 35 years of my life. I haven't always loved my job, but I have loved my job a lot. It satisfies my creative side and desire to solve problems. I happen to work in one of those shops where most of the employees are not highly valued. I had to teach myself almost everything that I know including digging Mastercam 3.1 out of a box, installing it on an old computer out on the floor and then teaching myself how to use it A to Z. The lathe programmer, my then boss was a Smartcam devotee (Hated it) but I persevered and ended up being offered the Milling Supervisor position which included being the programmer. Now I'm 60 making mid 60'S with 14 Mills in my section. I am as worried as most of you guys about the direction of machining in America. The young guys are so often unmotivated and downright lazy, but they seem to be whats available for employment so we chew through a bunch of them to find one or two who are worth their salt.

I just upgraded to X9 and I have a glitch in X+. I use a screen shot for my setup sheet and now I am getting a screen shot with the dark graphics background unless I shrink the image more than is useful. Larger images are also truncated if displayed too large. Any ideas?

Thanks Colin, as always you give clear, concise explanations. I will digest this all tomorrow.

Well, dang it. I got my reseller to send me the 5 Axis Power Point Presentation in hopes of fixing this post. The entire section about the matrix is 2 pages long with NO detail about how the darned thing is setup, just a vertical and a horizontal example. BTW the example that I posted matches the horizontal example in the power point. However, the illustration therein gives me a possible clue. It shows the indexer facing to the left at B axis home position. I have always set up the indexer with the indexer spindle facing the Z axis.

Thanks Foghorn, I tried the force tool change and got correct code at least for one test. More later, Peter

This is what I currently have in my post settings matb1$ : 1 matb2$ : 0 matb3$ : 0 matb4$ : 0 matb5$ : 0 matb6$ : 1 matb7$ : 0 matb8$ : -1 matb9$ : 0 I checked in help and found nada about machine base matrix. I'm actually surprised that this is in the post and not set in the machine definition. are there any reference materials out there for me to read?