How Do I Change The Font In 3D Text?

The main idea of a 3D application like Blender is to create three-dimensional objects for things like 3D printing, animation, video games, etc. But did you know that you can also create and edit the text as well in both the 3D viewport and the video sequence editor?

To change the font of your text in Blender, follow the steps listed below…

  • Select Your 3D Text Object
  • Go To The Object Data Tab In The Properties Panel
  • Open Up The Fonts Section
  • Press The Folder Icon To Open Up The File Browser
  • Locate Either Your Download Folder Or Font Library
  • Select Your Chosen Font
  • Press The Blue Open Font Button
  • Use Your Imported Font Your Project

The ability to change your font is one of the most effective ways of changing the appearance of your text object and can really change the character of a scene where the text plays an important part in the scene’s appearance.

Can You Change The Text Font In Blender?

Text is one of the many object types that can be used in Blender to create a wide variety of different scenes. We can use text in scenarios like viewing pages of books, creating a title sequence, adding subtitles, billboards, and more.

The font of the text is key to defining its character. If you are using your text in an old victorian setting then a handwritten font will be more effective than a bold, all-caps font.

Blender itself only has a single font that it can use right off the bat, which is referred to as Bfont, or BlenderFont. It is a boldened, simplistic font that is used as a universal font for most scenes but is not really suited to any.

While Blender only has a single font to use itself, we are able to access more fonts using the file path system to import our fonts from other areas of our computer.

You have two options here for accessing new fonts to use in your project. The first option is to use the font library that is provided by your operating system if you are using either macOS or Windows.

The alternative option will be to download a new font from a third-party library like 1001fonts or font squirrel and then import that new font from your download folder.

How Do You Change The Text Font In Blender 3D?

Changing the font is relatively straightforward once you have set Blender up to do so. The main method for using external fonts is going to be the use of your operating systems font library.

We use windows, so our example will involve the windows operating system, but the steps can be effectively mirrored for macOS as well.

Directing Blender To The Font Library

What we will need to do first is direct Blender to the fonts library every time we want to change the font, so go to the edit menu in the header bar of the Blender UI and select the preferences option at the bottom of the list.

User Preferences Location

This will open up the preferences panel in a separate window. You will see the sections of the user preferences as a column to the side of the panel. The section that we need to select is the File Paths section.

In this section, you will be able to tell Blender exactly which folder you want to go to when importing specific data types, like fonts, textures, and sounds.

File Paths Section

The first option is for locating new fonts, and to the side will be a button with a folder icon. Select that button to open the file browser in another window.

Now to locate the font library, which on a Windows device can be done by first accessing the drive that your operating system is stored on, which will be your main C drive in most cases.

Main Drive

Then locate the folder in your main drive that is labeled as windows, and double click to open it up.

Fonts Folder

Within the windows folder, locate the Fonts folder from the list and then double left click to open again.

You will now see all of the fonts that are stored in the font library, which can be used to change the font of your text in Blender. You do not need to select any fonts right now, nor will it let you. Just click on the blue button in the bottom corner to confirm the library as the preferred location for accessing your fonts.

Importing A Font From Your Library

Now you will be able to use all of the fonts from your font library for your Blender projects, but you will still be required to import each one that you plan to use.

Select your text object in either the 3D viewport or in the outliner panel, and then go to the properties panel.

If you have selected the text option, then in the tab column to the side you will find an icon of a green a, which represents the object data properties for text objects.

Object Data Tab

Select it and you will find all of the different attributes that you can change for your text objects. But we are not yet interested in the size of our text or how much it bevels, we want to change the font of the text.

You will find a branch for fonts in this panel, so left click to open up the font branch. Here you will have access to the font options, which are by default limited to the single Bfont.

Font Location

You also have the ability to assign fonts to your text depending on if it is using a specific attribute like bold, italic, or both.

To add a font to the regular attribute, which is for normal text, left-click on the folder icon for regular.

Access To Font Folder

If you were successful in linking up your font library to Blender, then this button will take you straight to the font library. You can now select any of the fonts from this list.

You will notice that there are small groups of these fonts that are different variations of each other. Some will be labeled as bold which are best suited for the bold text option. Select a regular font to use for your project. In our example, we are going to use the Georgia Pro Cond font, so select it and then press the blue open font button to close the file Browser.

The font of the option will now have changed to the imported font. In our example below we see how the text has changed just by switching out the font.

Basic Font Controls

There are a few basic tools that you can also use here for your text fonts. You can for example add additional fonts to your regular font option, although it will always use the most recent import.

Older fonts are not initially deleted, and if you press the F button you will open a menu that contains all the imported fonts and select your font from that list.

Access Font Menu

If you press the X button next to the folder button, then you unlink the text file from the font, reverting it back to the standard Bfont. Again this does not delete the font, and only unlinks it. So you can still access that font from the F menu.

Unlink Data Block

The hollow shield icon indicates that the font does not have a fake user assigned to it. Certain elements in Blender, like materials, textures, and fonts, are deleted when a project is closed if they are not assigned to any objects in the scene, even if you saved the project itself before closing.

No Active User

A fake user prevents that element from being deleted in this use case. Assign the font to your text temporarily, and then press the hollow shield button. It will now appear blue and white with a tick in the center.

Add Fake User To Font

If you were to switch your font now with an alternative, and then closed Blender, you’ll still have access to that font when you return, even if it is not assigned to anything.

Adding Fonts For Both The Bold And Italic Stylings

Aside from assigning the regular font, you can also assign fonts to the bold and italic stylings, and even both at the same time.

The process is exactly the same, where you use the folder icon to access your font library and then select the font that you want to use.

It is ideal here to add in the fonts that are appropriate to the labeled stylings. For example, our regular font is the Georgia Pro Cond, so for the bold font we will select the Georgia Pro Cond Bold font and for the italic styling, we will select Georgia Pro Cond Italic. For both stylings at the same time, we can select the Georgia Pro Cond Bold Italic font.

Our properties panel looks like this when we install each of the fonts…

Font To Each Styling

There is one issue here that you may have noticed, and it’s that Blender only seems to use the regular font and does not indicate how to use any of the stylized versions instead.

To switch your regular font to your bold font, select the text object in object mode press TAB to go into edit mode.

Then you need to select your word or words by using the hotkey Control + A to select every letter. You can then use the following hotkeys to change your text styling…

  • Control + B To Use Bold
  • Control + I To Use Italic
  • Both Of The Above To Use Both
  • Control + U To Create An Underline
  • Control + P To Toggle Small Caps

You can also access each of these options by going to the text menu in the header of the viewport while in edit mode. Keep in mind that the letters must be selected for the functionality to work.

Toggle Options

Where Can You Access More Fonts To Use?

There are two key issues with using the fonts library for your operating systems. The first issue is that the fonts are fairly standard, and there is often not a lot of visual difference between each one.

There may be scenarios where you require more unique fonts that add more personality to your scene. For example, you might be creating a scene of a party and need a fun font to reflect that.

The second key issue is that with font libraries you do not have access to the viewing of those fonts until you import them into your project. Then you have to continuously check each one to see which fits best for the scene.

A side issue is these fonts are very traditional fonts used in various forms of writing and their names are not a very good indicator of how they will appear.

A solution to both of these issues is to use online library sites that allow you to use 100’s custom-made fonts. These sites are either run by major online entities like adobe and google, or community-based libraries where everyday users of the site can upload their own fonts.

For example, let’s take a look at a website called dafont.com, which is a community-based site that allows artists to create their own typography and allow you to use it in your own projects.

Dafont Site

The first key advantage to using online libraries is apparent, in that you can actually see the fonts on screen before you download them.

The second advantage is also seen with these previews as the fonts are generally more creative and more artistic than the ones that you are likely to find in the Windows font library.

And the third advantage in many cases is that the authors of these custom fonts will name them appropriate to their theme or purpose.

On the other hand, there is a key disadvantage to accessing your fonts in this way. That disadvantage is the availability and allowance provided for that font.

When you download a font from a website such as dafont, you are asking for permission to use someone else’s creation, and so licensing applies when downloading custom fonts.

In many cases, you are not allowed to use fonts without first purchasing the licensing rights to that content. This can take different forms, such as when the author asks for a small donation for you to use the font, as you cannot pay for the font on the sites themselves.

All of the fonts found on these websites can be used for personal projects though without any issue. It’s only for commercial use that you come across the red tape.

Set New Directory

To use downloadable fonts instead of your OS font library, return to the preferences panel in Blender and then redirect the fonts access to either your download folder or create a new folder where you plan to send your fonts to and send Blender there. We recommend creating your own custom folder here.

For example, we are going to download the font seen in the image below to use in our project.

Sample Text Font

When downloaded open up your download folder, and if on a Windows device, extract that folder, sending the contents to your custom-made fonts folder.

Extract File

Blender will not be able to read your fonts so long that it is in the compressed folder that you downloaded, so they will need to be extracted.

Then repeat the same process as with accessing fonts from the OS library, going to the properties panel, and selecting the folder icon for the regular fonts. It should take you to your new destination where your font can be found.

Select the font that you wish to use and then select the Open Font button to import your selected font into your project.

Using The Custom Font

5 Ways To Edit Text Objects In Blender Other Than Changing The Font That You Might Not Know

So you now know how to change the font of your text objects in Blender, but what other ways can you change the appearance of your text objects? Here are 5 additional tips that you can use to change the appearance of your text in your scene.

  1. Adjust The Kerning Of The Text – In the paragraph section, you will be able to adjust the spacing between the characters, words, and lines of your text.
  2. Realign Your Text To The Origin – Like all object types, you have an object origin used to control the object transforms. The alignment options allow you to adjust the text to your origin in different ways.
  3. The Sheering Effect – Under the transform object for the font you have the ability to sheer your text either left or right using the numerical slider.
  4. Link To A Curve – You can follow the length of a curve object by assigning your text to the curve using the text on curve option under transform.
  5. Animate Your Text – And you can also animate many of these properties to create even more variations of your text.

Is It Possible To Animate The Text Font In Blender?

There are a lot of attributes that you can animate in Blender, and there are many attributes that are specifically related to text objects that you can animate as well. For example, you can create an animation where the kerning between words is reduced, bringing the words closer together.

But what about the font? Is it at all possible to animate the font of your text so that it changes from one font to another as a part of the animation?

Unfortunately, the font is a singular property that does not have any room for variation, and so it cannot be animated. Any properties that can be animated will have a little white dot next to that attribute that can be pressed to insert a keyframe and create an animation.

Can I Use Text In The Video Sequence Editor?

Not only are we able to create text objects in the 3D viewport, but we can also add text elements to our video content in the video sequence editor.

Adding text in the VSE is as simple as going to the add menu and selecting text from the list, with it acting as an overlay for your content.

Like the text objects, text elements in the VSE can use the various different fonts that are available on your device, both from the operating system and from your downloaded files.

To change the font of your text in the VSE, along with the other properties of the text, press the N key to open up your side panel and the first tab open should be the item tab.

Here you will have the ability to change various properties of the text including the characters and the font.

Accessing your fonts is identical to in the properties panel. Select the open folder button to open the file browser, select your font and then press open font.

The one difference here is you don’t have to add fonts for the different stylings, and the B and I buttons will make your text Bold or Italic anyway.

Thanks For Reading The Article

We appreciate you taking the time to read the article. We hope that you were able to find the information that you were searching for. Below we have compiled a list of additional topics that you may be interested in reading.

  • Custom Normals: Blender Hard Surface Tip

    Enhancing hard surface models with custom normals for realism.

    Continue Reading


  • Align Perfectly with Blender’s Snap Tools

    Aligning objects perfectly with Blender’s advanced Snap tools.

    Continue Reading


  • Mechanical Parts: Blender Modelling Guide

    Detailed guide to modeling mechanical parts with precision in Blender.

    Continue Reading


Scroll to Top