How to Create 3D Text in Inkscape

With Inkscape's Extrude feature, you can achieve the appearance of engraved text.

Inkscape provides many tools to create interesting 3D effects in two-dimensional drawings. In addition to its primary features, Inkscape includes many contributed extensions from its community. Inkscape's extrude extension can create 3D effects for text, although the formatting the tool uses does require some extra steps to make attractive-looking lettering.

Instructions

1. Click the text button, which has an "A" as the icon and is located on the left side. Choose the font at the top of the screen, and click the large "B" to make the selection bold. Click and drag a rectangle inside the canvas, then type the text you want to create.

2. Put a border on the text and change the style. In the palette at the bottom of the screen, hold shift and click the color you want to make the border. Double-click the area next to the words "Stroke:". In the "Fill and Stroke" window that pops up, click the "Stroke Style" tab and click the "Round join" button, which looks like a blue, rounded corner.

3. Turn the text into a group of paths by holding down "Control" and "Shift", then pressing the "C" key. Ungroup the text objects by holding "Control" and "Shift", then pressing the "G" key.

4. Duplicate the path by holding down "Control" and pressing "D". Click the Select tool, which has an icon of a mouse cursor, on the left hand side of the screen. Click and drag the letters slightly up and to the left.

5. Select both versions of one letter by clicking and dragging a selection box around them. In the "Extensions" menu, go to "Generate from Path" and then "Extrude." Click the bullet next to "Polygons" and click "OK." Close the window.

6. Click on the extruded polygons to select them. Move the polygons down a level so that they are below the top letter by pressing the "Page Down" key. Select the top letter and press "Control" and "C" to copy the letter. Then select the extruded polygons and press "Control" "Shift" and "V" to transfer the style information onto the polygons.

7. Make the color the same as the border. Click the border color in the bottom color palette.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want the "side" of the text to be a different color than the border, ungroup the polygons the extrude function produces, then make them into a union with "Path" > "Union" to turn them all into a single contiguous object to eliminate the lines. You can also get rid of blockiness this process introduces by creating a union between the extruded path and the bottom text path.

References

• Inkscape: Extrude Function