Why does my script font carve wrong where the letters overlap?

Why this happens

Live, un-converted text is handled as text, and in most cases it can be V-carved, engraved, pocketed or profiled without converting it to curves. The problem starts when the text has been converted to curves (or imported as outlines): now it is just overlapping closed vectors, and the overlapping regions become ambiguous. The V-carve treats each outline separately and digs out or double-cuts the overlap zones. Lines of text stacked so closely that they touch cause the same problem, because their outlines intersect.

The fix

1. Keep text live whenever you can. Do not convert to curves unless you need node-level editing or the file is going somewhere fonts cannot follow.
2. If it is already curves (or stacked lines overlap): select the overlapping outlines and use Weld Vectors (Drawing tab) to fuse them into one outline. Welding text preserves the internal regions of the characters, so the holes inside P, O, A and similar letters survive as holes.
3. After welding, run the Vector Validator to check for remaining crossing points, and node-edit any spots where outlines still self-intersect.
4. Toolpath the welded result.

If you want the overlap kept visually: put each line of text on its own layer and create separate toolpaths per layer, so the overlapping outlines are never merged into one region. Test the look on scrap.

Pro tips

• Script fonts with long swashes sometimes self-intersect within a single letter as drawn by the font. Welding cannot fix a self-intersecting single outline; node editing is required there.
• Kerning letters closer (a tighter overlap) before welding gives connected-script signs a cleaner single-piece look.
• In the Vector Validator, tick V-Carving Mode to ignore intersections inside text that come from the font itself.