Shadowed text in template? (PPT 2003)

[Eva_S]

Hi,

I would like for all titles to have a shadow - however I would like to
decide the colour of the shadow myself. I know that there are two ways to
make a text shadow - by selecting the text (in the template) and in the top
menu, next tu underlined text etc, you can select shadowed text. This text is
automatically grey - no matter if you change the colour settings for the
template (where you change background colour, text colour etc). If looking at
the normal slides you can see this shadow, however I would like a brownish
shadow instead of the grey.

The second way is by selecting the text in the template and choosing the
shadow-box at the bottom of the screen. Here you can select which colour the
shadow should have. Great! ...except that it doesn't show when I look at the
regular slides - the shadow doesn't show there.

Is there any way to solve this problem?

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Eva,

I believe the following.

The 'text shadow' is a set size based on the size of your font.
The colour is determined from the 'background' colour of your current
template.
If it's (the background) white the shadow colour is grey
If it's black the shadow is white
If it's nearly any other colour the shadow is black

The other shadow setting can be applied to anything - including text
you can also control the positioning and the colour.

However applying the 2nd method can cause problems with printing black and
white hardcopies, as it quite often prints - causing the text to the hard to
read.

cheers
TAJ Simmons
Microsoft Powerpoint MVP

http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com
awesome - powerpoint templates,
powerpoint backgrounds, free samples, ppt tutorials...

 

[Echo S]

As TAJ explained, the typical text shadow is created by a combination of
your font color and background color. I find that it's almost always gray or
black.

The shadow on the Drawing toolbar is a shape shadow. It applies to your
autoshape specifically, not really to the text.

However, if the shape doesn't have a fill, the shape shadow appears on the
text instead. If the shape (a textbox or placeholder, in this case) does
have a fill, the shape shadow will apply to the shape.

It should show when you're in slide show view. (I just tested, and it does
here.) There are sometimes issues if you show the file in PPT 2007 (and
possibly the 2007 Viewer, too). If the text with a shape shadow is animated,
the text and shadow animate separately. But that's not what you're
describing.

In that case, I'd update my video driver and see if that resolves the issue.

Unless maybe the shadow's showing on the filled textbox/placeholder, so it's
not showing up on the text? If that's what's happening, it's to be expected.

But maybe you're talking about print preview or printing -- as TAJ says, the
shadows can be problematic then.