Creating text art in 10 seconds

You can create interesting artwork from text in OOo Draw. You need a logo or a title page for your brochure? Within a few seconds you can see the first results. Look at these examples that were finished within a few seconds:

Create stunning 3D text objects in Draw.

Play around with graphical text effects in Draw.

To create a 3D object

1. Open OOo Draw.

2. Click the T (text box) icon.

3. Drag a frame, enter the text.

4. Select the text, for example by pressing Ctrl+A.

5. Select a plain basic font and a big font size. You can enter any font size in the Font Size box if you want a size that is not listed.

6. Choose Modify - Convert - To 3D.

7. Select an area color, a line style, line width, and a different line color.

8. To rotate the 3D text art, click the Rotate icon. Rest the mouse over any of the six handles to see in which direction you can rotate the 3D object by dragging that handle.

To create graphical text effects

1. Open OOo Draw.

2. Click the T (text box) icon.

3. Drag a frame, enter the text.

4. Select the text, for example by pressing Ctrl+A.

5. Yes, it's all the same steps as in "To create a 3D object" above to create graphical text. Select a nice font and enter a big font size.

With the text selected, choose Format - Character - Font Effects to set the font color. In the example, the big O was set to gray color. The white text near the top was set to white color, then moved over the gray character. Use Modify - Arrange to change the stacking order of the text objects.

For the text effect in the middle of the example image, the big character O and the text "OpenOffice.org" were positioned at the same location, then selected together (click both with Shift key held down). Then both were combined by Modify - Combine.

In the installed Help for Draw or Impress you can find more instructions and tips and tricks. Click the "Instructions for Using OOo Draw/Impress" link on the main Draw or Impress Help page.

To export the text art as pictures

The Draw text objects are vector graphics that can be scaled to any size without problems. Copy the objects and paste them into Writer or Calc documents. If you want the objects on a Web page, you must export them to a pixel graphic format.

1. Select the object to export.
2. Choose File - Export.
3. Select a pixel graphics format and enter a name for the picture. Be sure that the Selection check box is enabled.