Applying an opacity to text colour and other text issues

LayOut
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I cannot see any way to apply an opacity to text colour - is this so? Despite loving Layout, I have to say the text handling generally is pretty awful.

Labels are far too complicated with multiple levels of clicks.

I also really miss the ‘Paste and Match Style’ cmd-option-shift-V which I use in lots of programs. For pasting in text copied from elsewhere ready formatted it is invaluable. With Layout, I have to past the text somewhere, select, format, copy and paste again - tedious!

1 Like
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I came to the forum with the same concerns.
I guess the lack of text opacity this isn’t such a big deal for the Layout crowd.

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Well, 5 years passed and little or no change in text handling. The price has changed though, but they lost me at the subscription model, so I guess I’m stuck with it until my licence stops working (or I move to an alternative).

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My expectations are so low, I was surprised recently to find out I could control the transparency of LO’s text box fill:

Screen Shot 2021-12-11 at 12.53.30 AM
Screen Shot 2021-12-11 at 12.53.30 AM726×684 149 KB

It’s really useful with all of SketchUp’s color shading in the background for the text to read. That said, what I’m used to in PowerCADD is still better. You can Select All (dimensions) and apply the attributes to them all at once. Also, Wild Tools has an attributes copy and paste tool that lets you copy the attributes and apply them to other entities with one click ignoring group nesting levels in the process … no need to drill down through nested groups to get to and modify the attributes.

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is it possible that we are already at 2024 and we still dont have a way to put trasparency on a text in layout?

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You can control transparency, color and even apply a pattern.
LO-Textbox

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Text is a vector thing. Transparency is not supported with vector rendering. You can use an image editor to create the text and save it as a raster image to import into LayOut. Raster supports transparency.

@ch3ck5ix I think @Syksy is referring to the vector text, not fill.

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Transparency is available as fill or stroke color, but we cannot create semi-transparent text which is more to the point.

@Syksy On the rare occasion when transparent text is indispensable I have used 3D text in a sketchup file, painted it with transparent material, set the camera to plan view and imported that scene into Layout as a viewport. Set the viewport to Hybrid to get sharp edges while preserving transparency. Uncheck the Preserve Scale option to resize the text as needed in Layout.

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1 Like
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Apologies - I misunderstood the issue. I suppose another work around or alternative is importing the text with transparency into Layout. As a quick test with LibreOffice Draw I created a text with color, transparency and gradient:

image
image1195×845 56.5 KB

Here is the text imported into Layout as a PNG:
image
image774×491 27.4 KB

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That works because .png files are raster images that support transparency.

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@DaveR @ch3ck5ix @endlessfix

Indeed i was refering to vector text, i ended up doing just what you suggested, i did a PNG with trasparency in photoshop and inserted it as PNG… but come on :rofl:

lets hope this could be introduced in the future, also transparency in layers and so, thank you all!