Accented letters on 3d text

Support Basics & Interface
1

I’m using Blender 2.5 alpha 2 and kubuntu 10. I cannot get to insert accented letters such as “é” or “ã” on Blender as a 3D text. The keyboard input in Blender seems to work differently from the rest of my operational system. Maybe I should change that in the settings somewhere? I’ve searched for it, but couldn’t find it.

The only work-around I found so far was to copy the character to the clipboard, go to edit mode to edit the text. Paste won’t work from the OS clipboard in edit mode, but it does in the normal Blender ui. So I have insert any random word so the history tool shelf will display the “insert text”, then I paste the character on the input area and insert that text to the 3d character.

Is there any way to insert accented characters directly to 3d text in blender?

2

I’m not sure why that is. I just added a font the other day called ‘Chalk’ and it has lots of broken up parts just like chalk on a chalk board. When I use it in Blender it comes out exactly like the font.
Maybe the font set does not have these markings? Maybe they are computer generated and not referenced to the font set.

3

I’ve tried changing fonts, but my problem isn’t that the default fonts cannot display special characters. It does support all the characters I need, I simply cannot easily input them from my keyboard while in edit mode.

4

Another way to approach this is to create your text in illustrator or inkscape. Then export a SVG file from either program. Then import the SVG file and any special characters will be intact. Because it a curve, you will still be able to extrude and bevel it.

5

on windows at least locally we have keyboard that we can set for French or English text
with French setting we have accent included on special keys

so not certain if this has anything to do with the font or the keyboard alone?

but it should be with the font which is changed when changing the keyboard setup!

if i have time i’ll try to test this later on this week
if anybody else has an idea let us know

salutations

6

I’ve got the same problem. I need to type letters with central european accents like ěščřžů. I have the fonts that contains them, i can switch my keyboard layout from english to czech, but nothing works for me. these special accents are mapped on the “number” keys, so when i press them, i switch the layer, or if i have a numpad emulated, i change the view. There is also a way to type them like pressing accent key with shift and then the letter, but it also doesn’t work. Strangely i can type the éíáýú letters with accents normally. Any advice?

7

You could try my BlendText script (link in my signature below). You can cut and paste phrases into the text box. Then browse to your font. I would be interested if it works for such occasions.

8

thanks for the reply. Anyway it didn’t work, blender ui didnt recognized the characters “ěščřž” was pasted like “e?s?c?r?z?”. But this seems to be a 2.49 problem, in 2.5 pasting into UI is correct, but i cannot paste inside the text object.

9

The try setting the string with a line of python code?

Create a new font object, it will be called “Text” in a default scene.


import bpy

myString = "New Text Here"
bpy.data.curves["Text"].body = myString

Paste your accent copy into the string and try running the script.

10

I don’t know much about programming/scripting, so i might did something wrong, but it didn’t work. It showed an error. Anyway even if the scrip did work, I wasn’t able to insert the accent characters into text editor in 2.49. I can sort of do it in 2.5 (its broken like “eˇsˇcˇrˇzˇ” but better than nothing), but as i know nothing about python i was only able to run this

import bpy 
bpy.ops.object.text_add()

. It seems to me i’ll have to model the accents manually.

11

Or just do my original suggestion and layout your text in Inkscape or Illustrator. Export a SVG file and import that into Blender. Then you can still extrude and bevel it just like a font object.

12

Yeah or that… sadly 2.5 doesn`t support svg import yet, so i’ll have to import it into 2.49 and than append… hopefully it ill work.

13

:o Someday, someone will have to explain what “running a script” means and how it can be performed… I never know what, where and how it must be done… Of course everybody who speeks about “scripts” is talking about it just like everybody would master it… :eek: But for none coders, this is just esotheric. :yes:

14

Hi, everyone.

I,m not mastering python but starting with…

I do:

  1. Open blender 254 (actually 31874)
  2. Open a text editor and paste Atom script into it
                 p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }  Import bpy

myString = “Aquí va el texto…”
bpy.data.curves[“Text”].body = myString

  1. Create a font object in a 3dview.
  2. Check that object to name “Text”, to match the script…
  3. Run the script by pressing “Run Script” button.

With the text included by Atom, it works, but if the text in the scripts include à, é, ü or another accented text, it crashes

  •                p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }  SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'utf8' codec can't decode bytes in position 0-2: unexpected end of data

I’m again at the start point. (but with a script runed :slight_smile:

It looks like some problem with utf8 support in the text editor or is some from python? Maybe some configuration i must do?

15

Did anyone find a solution?

Obviously, importing the text as curves or remodelling the text is not a sollution. Or else blender should not even have text capabilities. We should just model or import everything.

16

I could not get unicode to work at the code level either, so importing it as a SVG is your only option.

Just type your characters in InkScape or Illustrator. Save as SVG. Import into SVG via 2.49 import script. Then save your file. You can work in 2.49 or 2.5.

We should just model or import everything.

I just accept this as a given anyway.

17

@ Atom
Sorry PM are not working right now!

can you go to IES thread in WIP got a questions for you!

Thanks happy 2.5

18

Um guys - maybe I’m missing something here, but I’d rather try and help and look like a doofus than not do anything…

Anyway, with 3D text, when I want to put in special characters, like ash -> “Æ”
there’s a tab (usually underneath the “font” tab) labeled “Char”. It appears when you go into edit mode and if you hit the “D” (down) button,
you can find your special letters. Just click on them to insert.

As I said, maybe you already know this or it’s totally unrelated to what you’re trying to accomplish, but…

/Grim

Attachments


19

The special character table is in blender 2.49 but the original question was about using blender 2.5beta. This special character table is not yet present in the beta builds.

20

@grim: 2.49b does not have the unicode Char TAB. If you are going to reply with solutions that require special builds, please provide a link to that build.