Creating 3D Text You probably have seen examples of 3D text and perhaps wondered how it can be done. As with most computer graphics, there are a lot of programs that can do 3D modeling. However, there is a way to create 3D text using the free LibreOffice program. As a matter of fact, the text sample shown here was created with LibreOffice Draw in a few quick steps. Fontwork Gallery LibreOffice provides several ways to create 3D text. The Fontwork Gallery is available in LibreOffice Writer, LibreOffice Impress (Presentation), Calc (Spreadsheet), and LibreOffice Draw. In this document, we will focus on LibreOffice Draw. Start LibreOffice Draw and Open a new document. The LibreOffice Draw program has a page pane the is useful if you are working with multipage documents. In this example we will only be working with one page, so this panel can be turned off to make more room for our project. From the Menubar, select View, Page Pane top toggle the Page Pane off. Select the Fontwork Gallery tool. Page 1
This opens the Fontwork Gallery dialog box. Observe that there is a scroll bar on the right side of the dialog box that can be scrolled to reveal more options. When you place a fontwork gallery object in your drawing the default text will be Fontwork. Select a Fontwork Gallery style and then select OK. [You can also double click on a style.] When a Fontwork Gallery object has been added, it will automatically be selected. A selected object will have handles (or grab points) at the corners and mid points of the object. When an object is selected, a Properties Sidebar will appear. (If the Sidebar is not on your display, press F11 to toggle it back on.) Drag the grab points to change the size of the fontwork object. When you position the mouse cursor over the fontwork object, the cursor will change to a four way arrow. Use the four way arrow cursor to drag the object to a new location. To edit fontwork gallery text, double click on the fontwork gallery object and then edit the word fontwork to be your own text. When you have edited the text, select a location away from the text to complete the edit. Page 2 of 7
Changing Fontwork object styles When a fontwork object is selected, the Properties Sidebar Area tools provide access to a variety of style options. The Area, Fill tool provides Color, Gradient, Hatching, Pattern, or None options for controlling the fill of the fontwork text. The Shadow option can be enabled to add a shadow to a fontwork option. There are several control options for shadows. The Area, Fill, Bitmap option has a list of bitmap patterns that can be used to fill the text in a fontwork object. The Area, Fill, Gradient option provides for adjusting the beginning and ending colors, the gradient style, and direction of the fill. Page 3 of 7
The Area, Fill, Hatching option provides for adjusting the hatching style of the fill. The Area, Fill, Pattern option provides a pop down list of patterns for the fontwork text fill. The Area, Fill, Color option provides a collection of solid colors for the fontwork text fill. How to insert 3D text into a word processing document Inserting your 3D text into a LibreOffice Writer word processing document (or any other document) is cake. Select the 3D text object and then from the Menubar select Edit, Copy. Open a document and from the Menubar select Edit, Paste. If you paste the object into LibreOffice Writer, you can still modify its size and area fill. Creating Custom 3D Text Start LibreOffice Draw and Open a new document. From the toolbar area, select the Text tool. Click in the display, and enter 3D TEXT. Page 4 of 7
Select the 3D TEXT and use the Properties Sidebar to set the font to Arial 72 bold. Right click on the text border and from the pop up context menu select Convert, To 3D. This will extrude the text to 3D. Note that once the text is converted to a 3D object you can no longer edit the text. Since the original text was black, it will not look very good until the color is changed. With the text object selected, use the Properties Sidebar to change the color. You should experiment with this process a bit until you can create your own 3D text. Before you convert text to 3D: Try different fonts. Page 5 of 7
Select the text box outline to display the grab points. Drag the size grab points to change the size of your text box. Note that dragging the grab points changes the box size, not the font size. Select words in the text box and then use the Properties Sidebar to change font size and style. To move a text box, position the mouse cursor over the box border and when the mouse cursor becomes a double arrow you can click and drag the text box to a new location.. After converting text to 3D: Once you have created a 3D text object, there are a number of different options you can apply. Right click on a text box border and from the context menu select Convert, 3D Text. Right click on a 3D text object, and select 3D effects to open the 3D effects Sidebar. The 3D Effects Sidebar provides many options for modifying objects. There is a row of tools across the top of the sidebar. If the Geometry tool is selected, there are options for changing the rounded edges, scaled depth, and more. If you change the rounded edges option to 0%, the corners of the text will be sharp rather than rounded. In the 3D Effects sidebar, select the Geometry tool and change the Rounded edges option to 0%. Then click the Assign tool to make the change. In the 3D Effects sidebar, select the Geometry tool and change the Rounded edges option to 20%. Then click the Assign tool to make the change and observe the difference. Page 6 of 7
Review the different tools across the top of the 3D Effects dialog box. Each of these opens to more options. At this point you should be ready to experiment with your own 3D text creations. Remember that the Undo tool makes it easy to return to earlier versions of your experiments. More 3D Don't stop here. There are many other 3D creation options available in LibreOffice Draw. From the Menubar, select View, Toolbars, 3D Objects. This will open a tool panel with tools for creating 3D objects. The illustration shows examples of different 3d objects created with these tools. For more information about LibreOffice Drawing features, press F1, Select LibreOffice Draw in the top text window, select the Index tab, and double click on the desired term. This version was created on November 3, 2018 Page 7 of 7