text box internal margins - how to set them

[rapple]

Using Draw, but this should apply across all apps.

Question
Can you change the internal margins of a text box? Not using paragraph spacing, tabs, font size etc. just set where you want the text inside the box to start?

Background
I’m trying to create diagrams that unfortunately have a lot of text and where the boxes are getting quite small to fit with the graphics around them, the margins become relatively large to the font, wasting space and sometimes making it difficult to get in the numbers of words required for clarity.

There are lots of ways to format text but I haven’t found a way to set the internal margin i.e. top/bottom/left/right for spacing within a text box.

I know that you can set paragraph formatting to increase these, but I actually want to reduce these and all the formatting dialogues don’t seem to take negative offsets.

I’ve found very little comment about this, so I’m wondering if it’s even possible.
I did find a thread in a bug tracker https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41542 which seems related but from what I can tell is specifically related to removed borders. It’s not even clear whether this has been implemented yet.

As it happens, many of my text boxes are borderless as they are superimposed over other graphic objects to give the appearance of being related - and yes I am aware of the text properties of objects and no I can’t use those because they seem to have less control in terms of text positioning etc.

[Joshua2]

Select Text Box
Then in menu bar: Format > TextBox and Shape > Text Attributes ... (select your prefs.)
--
works on Text Document (LibreOffice 6.3.5.2 on macOS 10.15.3)

[Curbuntu]

This also works in LOW 6.4.6.2 on LInux (Ubuntu Maté 20.04.01). Thank you! I don’t think I would have found this on my own.

Food for design thought:

1. From my viewpoint, it might be better to have included this as a submenu in the textbox right-click contextual menu, as least as an alternative way to find the option. Yes, it’s part of formatting the text in the box. But from another POV, it’s part of formatting the way the box appears.
2. It might also be helpful to co-label it with its HTML-nomenclature equivalent, i.e., padding.

[marceloagoston]

It was helpful!! thanks mate!!

works on Text Document (Libre Office 6.4.7.2 on Ubuntu Mate 20.04)

[ajlittoz]

As you know, there are two ways to add text in a Draw graphic.

When text is a property of an object

This is the case when design a diagram with labeled shapes (usually, shapes are also linked to each other by “connectors”).

Just draw a shapr, e.g. a rectangle, and tune its properties (border, fill color, …). Double-click inside to add text.

If you want to turn this shape in an auto-sized tect box, right-click on the text and Text from the droip-down menu.

CAUTION!* If text contains spellcheck errors (red wavy line under words, right-click in an area without spellcheck errors, otherwise the spellcheck menu takes precedence and you can’t access to Text tuning.

Got ot the Text tab. Anchor your text to the center, check Resize shape to fit text. You can now set the spacing to borders to your needs.

The shape will no longer be larger than your text + spacing. Eventually, add manual line breaks to wrap your test.

When text is not related to an object

Use a text box (the rectangle with a T inside in the upper toolbar). Background is transparent, so it does not matter if spacing or size is too big.

For an unknown reason, the procedure above should work with text box but it seems it does not (at least on my computer _ LO version 6.2.7.1)

To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!