In this first step, we only need to enter the text such as “The Wilsons”  Choose your font, and keep in mind a connected font will make alignment easier.  I also recommend that you create additional words as a separate text box.  This will make it easier for alignment.

With everything entered, resize your text so that it is the desired width.  For my project I am doing 30 inches. This will of course cause the text to extend off the ends of the canvas, but that is ok.

Our next step is to create tiles to help with dividing up our larger design.  When creating the tile consider the maximum area you can engrave.  This would factor in the working area of the laser as well as the size of the material being used.  The sheets of basswood plywood I have is 11.75x11.75 inches.  I like to always size the tiles slightly below this to account for any margin of error.  

To create the tiles, use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle on the canvas.  Use the W and H properties to size the rectangle to match your material.  Copy and paste the square as many times as needed to cover the design with tiles.  

Position the tiles so that they are touching the next tile but not overlapping.  Also try to plan where the tiles touch so that it is not a noticeable part of the design.  This might not be avoidable, but you will want to do this because where the tiles end, there will be a small line since we are meeting up two pieces of wood.

With the entire design covered with tiles, we want to select everything on the canvas and then create a new canvas for each tile.  In my project I have four tiles, so I need 4 new tabs so that each tile will have its own canvas.

Paste the entire design into each new canvas.

This part can be tricky, but don't worry about just doing this with trial and error.  You still have the first canvas tab with the entire design to pull from if you mess up.  Also, don't forget about “ctrl”+"Z" to undo any unwanted changes.

I began by going to the canvas for the first tile of the design.  I went ahead and removed the tile covering the area I wanted to keep.  Next I select the text and then select the tile to the right of the area i want to keep.  

With both selected, use the combine tool to “subtract” the area covered by the tile.

Now, we can move to the second canvas and remove the tile covering the middle of the design.  Then I selected the tile to the left and subtracted it from the design and then selected the tile to the right and subtracted it.  

This process has left the middle section of the design, which is tile 2.

Finally, we can move to the last tile and subtract the first to sections.  This results in the third and final tile .  Don't forget to remove the square that covered this section.

With all four tiles ready, we can move on to setting up the processing   I want the letters to be cut out, so we will use the cut process.  I have a D1 with a 5W laser, so my cut settings are 100% power, 4mm/s speed and 5 passes.  

I then applied these settings to all four tiles and ran each as a separate job.  

Remember to follow all he safety guidelines for your laser and wear all necessary personal protective equipment when the laser is in operation.