Nest small letters inside larger letters
The bundled letter drawing has 147 glyphs in four sizes. Small letters can occupy the holes of large ones, making it a useful example of part-in-part nesting. Nestbolt treats each closed outline as a part and the outlines inside it as holes.
Free and MIT-licensed; your files never leave your computer.
What this job asks for
The job uses a 600 × 400 mm sheet and quarter-turn rotations. Its quantities ask for the eight large letters of NESTBOLT once each, then smaller glyphs two, four and six times. The settings below describe this bundled example, which is separate from the README's larger 451-part letter showcase.
| Sheet (mm) | 600 × 400 |
|---|---|
| Margin | 5 mm |
| Part spacing | 1 mm |
| Edge spacing | 1 mm |
| Allowed rotations | 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° |
| Part types and copies | 147 glyphs in four sizes (NESTBOLT at 80 mm once, then 28, 14 and 7 mm glyphs two, four and six times); the app imports them as 156 parts (see the measured layout) |
| Time budget | 30 seconds |
Measured layout
Measured on 2026-10-20 with a local build of main at c9b0176, in a headless Chromium browser on a desktop PC, with the example’s own settings: the 30-second search placed 156 of 156 parts on one sheet, 22 of them inside the holes of other letters, with 55.7% utilisation and material 0.309 sheets, and left a clear 600 × 282 mm offcut. The independent check: valid. The app counts 156 parts rather than 147 glyphs because each closed outline is a part: each of the four % signs is three parts (two rings and a slash), and the summary counts NESTBOLT’s two Ts as one. Results vary a little between runs and computers, because the search stops at its time limit.
main nested it on 2026-10-20 (30-second search): 156/156 parts, 22 inside holes, check valid.Try it yourself
Open the app, click “Letters inside letters” under “Or try an example:”; it loads the drawing and starts nesting straight away. Or download the letter drawing and drop it in, using the quantities and settings above.
While the search runs, look for small glyphs placed inside larger outlines and review the clear offcut above the parts. Returned layouts pass the independent validator's overlap, spacing, containment, rotation and quantity checks. Per-sheet SVG and DXF exports use the original curves.
Use your own file
- Review the imported outlines and their holes before nesting. Interior space matters for a drawing designed around part-in-part placement.
- Check quantities at each size. This example asks for different copy counts across its four size groups.
- Set the permitted orientations explicitly. Here the list is 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°, with 1 mm part and edge spacing.
Source and licence
The drawing uses DejaVu Sans Bold glyph outlines as geometry; the font itself is not included. DejaVu fonts are based on Bitstream Vera, copyright © 2003 Bitstream, Inc.; DejaVu changes are in the public domain. Bitstream Vera is a trademark of Bitstream, Inc. The drawing licence file records these notices. Nestbolt itself is MIT licensed.