SlideRocket has powerful tools for laying out and displaying text. Here we’ll talk about how to create a text box that has a border and is partially transparent, and how to apply a subtle dropshadow to the text inside. The finished result will look like this:

To start, create your text box and make sure that the “Styles” tab is selected along the top-right corner of the screen. The next four steps are highlighted in the image below:
1. Set your fill to “Color” and click the color chip.
2. Pick your color and drag the “Opacity” slider at the bottom of the color picker to make your text box partially transparent.
3. Set your stroke to “Solid”, pick a color, and set the weight of the stroke to place the border around your text box.
4. Format your text with color, size, horizontal justification, and vertical justification (in this example the text is right-justified and centered vertically).

The steps to apply the dropshadow to your text are highlighted in the image below:
5. Click the “Effects” tab in the top-right corner of the SlideRocket screen
6. Click the “Add Effect…” button, choose the DropShadow effect, and adjust your settings to taste (we’ve lowered the opacity for a more subtle dropshadow).

- mike