Too many stroke lines & need engraving font.

Question

I've purchase a Roland GX24 vinyl cutter and using it to plot drawings (bought special pen). The problem is the areas that are solid black (especially the curves) are made of lines which are very close together, so when I go to plot they tear the paper and wear out the pen . I need to find a quick way of making this full of just little dots, I have created a live paint area of this group and trying to put little dots on them (anyone know a quick way of this as I choose 'effect', 'Pixelate', 'color halftone'. I think the dots are too big and will come across same problem with pen tearing, I want tiny dots spaced far away from each other or strokes far away from each other.
This only solves half the problem as the original work is still below it and when I go to plot it will do both so still going to tear the paper; I know what you''re thinking; just remove the old one below; but it is made of tiny little curves and strokes so I can't just simply select it, what can I do here please?
As if that's not the only problem , the text used is an outline and very small seeing as though they are blue-prints, the text blurs with the pen as the text is 'outlined', I need a quick way to turn this outlined text into single stroke text so it will be  clean enough to read.
Any help is really appreciated, I have pain stakingly gone through and created my own symbols of text in a single stroke but this is no solution as have been here all day doing this and I have at least 20 of them to sort out. And there will be more comming.
Below is a jpg of pic I am talking about, any input is greatly appreciated.
http://http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8GXfUGyR38udiA-J3HkvHA?feat=directlink

Answer 1

I've purchase a Roland GX24 vinyl cutter
Dal,
I'm taking you at your word and assuming the GX24 is simply a cutter/plotter, not a printer.
The problem is the areas that are solid black...are made of lines which are very close together...they tear the paper and wear out the pen...I need...just little dots.
With little dots, you might not shred the paper, but you're still going to then wear out the pen with all that pen-up, pen-down nonsense, just to draw a bunch of individual tiny dots. That is crazy use of a cutter/plotter.
...I choose 'effect', 'Pixelate', 'color halftone'...
The Color Halftone Effect is a RASER effect. It generates a raster image (a color image consisting of pixels), not paths for your plotter to follow.
Cutter/Plotters are driven by HPGL instructions that in simplifed terms go something like this:
"Go to coordinates XY"
"Pen/Knife down"
"Go to coordinates XY"
"Pen/Knife up"
In other words, they are not printers; they are plotters. They scribe vector paths by using their stepper motors to move the paper and pen/knife carriage to cartesian coordinates. They don't see or paint pixels. They don't think of the page as one big bitmap to fill in with dots.
There are cutter/plotters which incorporate raster printing (some of the best ones from Rowland). But they cost alot more than the GX24.
In short, you are trying to make inappropriate use of your device. It really shouldn't be used to "color in" solid areas. If you must try to fill text paths, use a reasonably sparse VECTOR hatch or pattern fill.
You can experiment with pattern fills, but be forewarned: The results will depend upon the translation capabilities of the software you are using to drive the device. Pattern fills in Illustrator don't really "stop" at the edges of the paths they fill. They are merely masked by the paths. So your plotter software would have to be smart enough to draw only the un-masked portions of the pattern paths. I'm not familiar with your particular device, or with Rowland's recent software, so you'll have to experiment if you want to use Pattern Fills.
Generally speaking, what you want to send to a vinyl cutter (even one doubling as a pen plotter) is in principle very simple: Send it paths which describe EVERY mark/cut you want it to make and NOTHING more.
One method in Illustrator with which you could quickly make marks to "scribble in" outlined text is the much overlooked Scribble Effect. Read about it in online Help. Set all variations and curviness to zero. Set stroke weight to zero (there is no weight to a cut), and control the density with the Spacing setting. Expand the results. That will generate zig-zag vector paths in shapes to "fill in" your large text. Being diagonal, it may not be exactly what you want, but it can yield a nice "architectural" sketch effect.
...the text used is an outline...I need a quick way to turn this outlined text into single stroke text...
CAD programs are still (largely) stuck in the foregone decades of pen plotters. That's why they still use proprietary single-stroke text. (Many now support normal outline fonts, but many Engineering departments have never changed their habits, so they needlessly cause downstream users to devise workarounds.) Programs like Illustrator don't understand fonts that are not outlines. There are no open paths in the fonts that you use in Illustrator. Even text set at tiny sizes are outline paths. And there is no feature in Illustrator to reliably and neatly render text as open path centerlines. (Experiments with rasterizing text and auto-tracing it can yield legible results, but nothing I would call presentable results.)
I have often thought it would not be too difficult to write a Javascript for Illustrator that would effectively replace ordinary type set in a monospaced font with Symbols containing glyphs drawn as open centerlines, "drafter" style. But I haven't got around to actually doing it yet. (The same script could be used for fun stuff, like automatically coding messages in colored nautical signal flags.)
The general assumption, when using a pen plotter, is that the input is coming from a CAD program, and that small text will, therefore, already be open path centerlines.
JET