Simple 2d text on a surface

I’m modeling an old phone, and just want to put some letters and numbers on a surface behind the phone’s wheel. I’ve been looking for a tutorial, but can’t find anything relevant. I don’t want 3D lettering, nor do I need to caption the model.
I would just like to use an existing font, which I have access to, and place the elements properly. Could anybody please point me in the right direction?

You could use 3D text, just with zero height/thickness.

Or try FlatText plugin - there are two free versions and a Pro one. Search Extension Warehouse for FlatText and you should find it.

PS. Or search 3Dwarehouse for ‘rotary dial phone’ - there are several examples there, from which you might copy a dial and numbers (but I saw only one with text, on a very quick search).

If you create an image of what you want, you can import it into SketchUp and cut it into any shape you want.

Import image as “Image”:

Draw shape you want it to occupy:

Explode the image:

Trim away the excess:

That’d work… Much obliged…

Now, why didn’t I think of that… Thanks a million.

Thanx, that helped…
There should be an extension for that, as it’s quite tricky to put 2D text on a 2D surface. Using very thin 3D is a stop-gap measure, as it has a tendency of “fuzzing out” when small.

Forget all that; It’d never occurred to me that the image could be exploded…