Canvas-native text
Updated v2.3.7At a glance
- Drag a box to place text, then type directly on-canvas with a live caret and instant geometry rebuild
- Searchable font picker: pinned + recent fonts, plus every system, imported, and jetcad.io font
- Bold / Italic toggles switch to the font's real bold and italic faces — never a faked slant
- Optional text-on-arc style control for curved layouts
The Text tool (T) uses drag-box placement: drag out a box where the text belongs and you drop
straight into canvas-native editing — no dialog, no text field. The vector geometry itself is the
editor: a blinking caret is drawn in the scene, typed characters rebuild the glyph outlines live,
Left/Right move the insertion point, Enter commits, and Escape cancels new text or reverts
an existing string. Double-click the edge of any committed text to reopen editing right where you
left off. While you type, spelling issues get red squiggles (grammar/style get green) with
suggestions, Ignore This, and Ignore Word on the right-click menu.
Fonts and size
The HUD's Font dropdown is the shared searchable picker from the
Font Manager: it opens with your pinned fonts and last ten used, and
typing searches everything — fonts installed on your system, OTF/TTF files imported into the
JetCad3 library, and the 2,000+ downloadable jetcad.io families (picking one downloads it on the
spot). With a text selection active, the HUD also shows Sz, the capital-letter
height in your working units, so 1 in inch mode means one-inch-tall caps regardless of font.
Beside the font picker, B and I toggles flip the text to the font's own Bold, Italic, or
Bold Italic face — real styles the type designer drew, never a synthetic slant — and grey out when
the current font lacks that face. Your last font and size choices are remembered for the next text
you place.
Curved text and real geometry
A dedicated curve handle on selected text bends the string along an arc — drag one way for a smile, the other for a frown — while the glyphs regenerate as clean contours. By default each letter keeps its shape and rotates to follow the arc; ticking Warp on the selection HUD bends the glyph outlines themselves to the curve for a fully warped, sign-style result. Committed text isn't a special object: it's a group of real vector shapes, one contour per glyph, one child group per letter, under a single root text group. It selects, transforms, exports, and cuts exactly like drawn geometry, and W/H scaling in the transform HUD works on it like any other selection. Size, font, and the text itself stay editable parametrically for as long as the text group exists.