Creating 3D Text with LibreOfficeCreating 3D Text with LibreOffice

Creating 3D TextCreating 3D Text

You probably have seen examples of 3D text and perhapswondered how it can be done. As with most computer graph-ics, there are a lot of programs that can do 3D modeling.However, there is a way to create 3D text using the freeLibreOffice program. As a matter of fact, the text sampleshown here was created with LibreOffice Draw in a few quick steps.

Fontwork GalleryFontwork Gallery

LibreOffice provides several ways to create 3D text. TheFontwork Gallery is available in LibreOffice Writer,LibreOffice Impress (Presentation), Calc (Spreadsheet),and LibreOffice Draw. In this document, we will focuson LibreOffice Draw.

✔ Start LibreOffice Draw and Open anew document.

The LibreOffice Drawprogram has a pagepane the is useful if youare working with multi-page documents. In thisexample we will only beworking with one page,so this panel can beturned off to make moreroom for our project.

✔ From the Menubar, select View, Page Pane top toggle the PagePane off.

✔ Select the Fontwork Gallery tool.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

This opens the Fontwork Gallery dialog box. Observethat there is a scroll bar on the right side of the dialogbox that can be scrolled to reveal more options.

When you place a fontwork gallery object in your draw-ing 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 hasbeen added, it will automatically beselected. A selected object will havehandles (or grab points) at the cor-ners and mid points of the object.

When an object is selected, a Proper-ties Sidebar will appear. (If the Side-bar is not on your display, press F11 totoggle it back on.)

➢ Drag the grab points to changethe size of the fontwork object.

➢ When you position the mousecursor over the fontworkobject, 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 fontworkgallery object and then edit the word fontwork to be your owntext.

✔ When you have edited the text, select a location away from thetext to complete the edit.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

Changing Fontwork object stylesChanging Fontwork object styles

When a fontwork object is selected, the Proper-ties Sidebar Area tools provide access to a vari-ety of style options.

➢ The Area, Fill tool provides Color,Gradient, Hatching, Pattern, or Noneoptions for controlling the fill of thefontwork text.

➢ The Shadow option can be enabled to adda shadow to a fontwork option. There areseveral control options for shadows.

➢ The Area, Fill, Bitmap option has a list ofbitmap patterns that can be used to fill thetext in a fontwork object.

➢ The Area, Fill, Gradient option provides foradjusting the beginning and ending colors,the gradient style, and direction of thefill.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

➢ The Area, Fill, Hatching option provides foradjusting the hatching style of the fill.

➢ The Area, Fill, Pattern option provides apop down list of patterns for the fontworktext fill.

➢ The Area, Fill, Color option provides acollection of solid colors for the fontworktext fill.

How to insert 3D text into a wordHow to insert 3D text into a wordprocessing documentprocessing 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 TextCreating 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.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

✔ 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 tochange the color.

You should experiment with thisprocess a bit until you can createyour own 3D text.

Before you convert text to 3D:Before you convert text to 3D:

➢ Try different fonts.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

➢ Select the text box outline to displaythe grab points.

➢ Drag the size grab points to changethe size of your text box.

Note that dragging the grab points changesthe box size, not the font size. Select wordsin the text box and then use the PropertiesSidebar to change font size and style.

➢ To move a text box, position themouse cursor over the box borderand when the mouse cursor becomesa double arrow you can click and drag the text box to a new location..

After converting text to 3D: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 Sidebarprovides many optionsfor modifying objects.

There is a row of toolsacross the top of thesidebar.

If the Geometry tool isselected, there areoptions for changing therounded edges, scaleddepth, and more. If youchange the roundededges option to 0%, thecorners of the text willbe sharp rather thanrounded.

✔ 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.

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Creating 3D Text with LibreOffice

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 3Dtext creations. Remember that the Undo tool makes it easy toreturn to earlier versions of your experiments.

More 3DMore 3D

Don't stop here. There are many other 3Dcreation options available in LibreOffice Draw.

✔ From the Menubar, select View,Toolbars, 3D Objects.

This will open a tool panel with tools forcreating 3D objects. The illustration showsexamples of different 3d objects createdwith these tools.

For more informationabout LibreOffice Draw-ing features, press F1,Select LibreOffice Drawin the top text window,select the Index tab, anddouble click on thedesired term.

This version was createdon November 3, 2018

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