Is it possible to change text direction in a Draw object?
I don’t want to rotate text, I want the text to be written from top to bottom but all characters should stand upright, as if I pressed Enter after each character (but I do not want to press Enter).
Thanks!
If you write into a TextBox (drawing shape) you can get the wanted effect by setting the width too narrow for any single character (including space) of the written text.
See attached example:
fakeVerticalTextExample.odg (10.7 KB)
Thanks, yes, that kind of works.
However what I was interested in was text in an object. I draw a rectangle, double click, type some text into it. It runs left to right. The rectangle is tall and narrow, so I’d like the text to be running from top to bottom.
What you suggest means that I need to draw the rectangle, then draw a separate TextBox, type my text, make it narrow enough, then manually centre it over the rectangle and then group the textbox and the rectangle together. If then later I want to resize the rectangle, then I need to ungroup, resize the rectangle, manually position the textbox to the centre, group again. Plus, the style for the textbox and the style for the rectangle are separate so if I decide to change the font for one, I need to change for the other as well. And then I need to go through the whole ungroup, centre by hand, group again routine for every object with a top-down text in it. Quite involved.
I was hoping that Draw had an option to make the text run from top to bottom where I don’t need to do all the above. Apparently it doesn’t.
You can save a few steps when resizing the grouped rectangle:
The text box and the rectangle can both have the same style.
One other possibility that is difficult is using a wide line and the old Fontwork control (add from Tools > Customise). It is difficult because for vertical text you need a double space before each tall letter and single before each short letter. Character kerning does not affect the resulting text at all.
Image below uses 20pt wide line, double-click to add text, then change with Fontwork. Be careful not to confuse with Fontwork.
Submitted Bug 155152 - Text on Path (old Fontwork) “Upright” letters have inconsistent insufficient spacing
There is one little inconsistency I marked with italics: If you expect the vertical text to be directly assigned to the “background shape” rectangle there isn’t a second text. You should therefore not expect/need two related texts if a workaround is used.
Otherwise you obviously know what’s to do. Therefore I had expected you to also know that the hope you expressed …
… was in vain. A software offering features and options/settings down to such detail would also need to implement additional UI elements (menu items, dialogs, toolbar elements {hopfully at least “ribbon” is dead again}.) What we already have in that range is too bloated anyway, imo. If I were a developer I would surely not pick a feature request to the mentioned effects to assign myself to its implementation. Just spend an evening with the attempt to just clearly specify the feature, and you will see …
What about punctuation?
What about text growing too high?
What vertical-line-wrapping to implement?
How to regulate the distances between two vertical lines? …
Only a few of many more open questions. Western languages/scripts/habits aren’ made for vertical writing. If you want it exceptionally for a specific purpose, everything is in your responsibility.
You may develop user/custom code for what you have in mind (or even already specified). And if you assume other users are interested in your solution, you may shape it into a new extension to LibreOffice and dedicate it to the community.