Your model's template determines your model's default settings. SketchUp includes several templates for common applications, like architecture, construction, urban planning, landscape architecture, woodworking, interior and production design, and 3D printing.

Can you imagine Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, learning how to create 3D models in SketchUp? Hopefully, he’d like the way SketchUp advances his groundbreaking invention - especially the text that moves and (in some cases) updates as you work on your model. In SketchUp, you can add four types of text, each depicted in the following figure:

Dressing up your text can add that extra professional touch to your LayOut document. For example, you might match the fonts and colors to your company’s or your client’s branding. And you definitely want to size the text so it’s easy to read.

Although documents tend to include more visual elements than text, you likely want a little text to add headings, bullet points, or other text to your document. In LayOut, you use the Text tool () to type text into a bounded or unbounded text box. You can also bring text into LayOut by importing a supported text document. In the following sections, you find out how all these text options work.

Although LayOut has only a slim chance of moonlighting with an illusionist act in Las Vegas, LayOut’s text isn’t always what it seems.

If you're new to creating documents and presentations in LayOut, a quick tour of the interface and few mousing tips can help orient you to LayOut's basic tools and features. Parts of the LayOut interface, like the Measurements box and some of the mousing tricks, look and feel like SketchUp. Other parts, like some menus and dialog boxes, are unique to LayOut. Ready to tour the interface? Let the following sections be your guide.