Text is floating and stays in the same orientation (and scale) when orbiting or zooming. The Tutorial says “Select Text Tool and double click on a surface to place the text.”
That step only fixes the anchor-point for the text’s leader arrow-head [if any].
Text ‘floats’ as you observed, it also resizes to remain a constant point-size in the screen [e.g. 12(pt)] - unless you have chosen to make it with a fixed dimension height [e.g. 100mm].
If you want to make text that is 'flat and glued to a surface use 3dText.
With no extrusion and a painted face it will ‘glue’ onto a surface - however it does not auto-include what it’s pointing at - you must type the text-string.
Also, unlike Text, standard 3dText is not editable after it’s been committed.
But there are several Plugins/Extensions to do this for you - allowing editing of their own text-elements later on:
My own 2dTools plugin includes 2dText SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
Also my Area Text Tag plugin links its ‘flat’ text to a select face and always reports its current area SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
Thomthom has his 3d Text Editor SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
Dave Penney has similar tools Flat Text SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation and SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
Text is always orientated to face towards the camera and it’s size is related to the screen rather than the model.
I would recommend using layers and scenes to hide/show text as required
An alternative solution: If it’s just a few words of text you can make it into geometry with the 3D text tool (un-tic the ‘extruded’ box to make it flat), then explode it, then make it a component - set the axis to the bottom left corner and tic “always face camera” before pressing OK.
Thanks. The 3D text works (putting a house number on the wall).
To create leader text that stays put (doesn’t follow the ‘camera’): Make a very small arc, then DIMENSION the arc and change the text. The arc itself ca be deleted. (Change the dimension properties to “Align to dimension”)
I usually just cheat and use the Dimensions tool, and change the text to whatever I want it to say. You can’t get rid of the dimensioning arrows, etc., but I accomplish the main purpose – labeling something, and it sticks.