Creating clearance for 3D printed inserts

[clock1956]

I am designing some clock bezels (see attached picture)  with lots of dials and a large number of numbers at different sizes;

The idea is that the numbers are printed separately with a different colour and inserted into the dials.

To do this I need a 0.2mm gap between the numbers and their associated cutouts in the dial in order to get insertion clearance.

I can do this with "Press Pull" as can be seen in the attached image of the number ""2", however it is very difficult to do that for numbers with lots of curves.

Ideally I want a way to create a path around the numbers in a sketch which is 0.2mm all around.

Anyone got any ideas?

[TrippyLighting]

What exactly is the difficulty ? Could you show that in a screencast ? 

The selection filter setting might be of help here.

[clock1956]

 https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/f05535ef-042f-4d80-94c0-55d355c569f4

The screencast shows how I used Press.Pull to create a "shrinkage" of a component. 

So I draw numbers on a dial (see previous image), the dial is extruded as a flat plate and the numbers also extruded and used as a cut tool to create pockets in the dial.

The dial and numbers are then 3D printed separately, but unless the number parts are shrunk by around 0.2mm then you cannot insert them as there is no tolerance.

Ok the Press.Pull does work but it is hard with that tool to select every face (in the XY plane) on each number to Press. It is not so bad for a single number shape but if there are a lot it is difficult to rotate the model to get at each face to select it. 

I am looking for an easier way to shrink parts. Perhaps a way to select all the faces at once in the XY plane for the Press.Pull tool or draw a 0.2mm perimeter line around the number shapes in a sketch.

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

Explode Text.  Offset .2mm. Extrude.

[clock1956]

Thanks, that works great.