Welcome to the forum.
We also do monument work and have primarily used SignLab and Adobe Illustrator. The modified roman fonts in SignLab are mediocre at best, and I have a couple of ttf fonts that also rank the same.
Three weeks ago, I found a brand new copy (never opened) of Gerber Omega 5 Layout Station on eBay for only $250. Layout station allows full design capabilities, but without any output to a plotter or printer. Files can be saved and exported to your cutter via .eps or other file formats.
The monument fonts are absolutely fantastic. The mod. roman fonts are better designed for sandblasting with wider serifs, and the commas also have small flats at the point that result in better deep cuts.
I believe Gerber used to sell the monument fonts as a separate package, or individually for around $99.00 each. But it has only been recently that they began bundling them with Omega.
In all, there are approx. 20 monument fonts. They include the modified roman fonts, vermarco, monument shadow, along with several older styled block typefaces that are common on hand carved granite monuments.
Omega 5 works extremely well with Illustrator, SignLab and AutoCAD (importing and exporting). One Omega feature I like the best is its outlining capabilities. You can make almost any typeface a frosted edge or polished edge...which I find to be way cool.
Even at it's regular price of nearly $900, the layout station is still a tremendous bargain for the design power it has. Had I not found my copy on eBay, I gladly would have paid full price later this spring.
PM me if you want to set up a time to talk on the telephone.
JB
