Hi,
How do i make the background of a text box transparent?

Thanks for your time
Darren

By default, it is already transparent. If you have shaded the background, remove the shading color.

Thanks for the info. How do i remove the shading colour? Is there a box i need to tick etc?

Thanks again for all your help
darren

If your background was applied by using the Shading Editor, then click the text object and open the Shading Editor->Selection tab and use the Delete button.

The you have used a shaded shape (e.g., rectangle) object, then delete the shape object.

Hi Larry,
I'm not sure my question is the same as Darren's but I'll ask it cause I can't figure this out.
I imported a jpg which is some text and it has a white background. I'm placing this jpg on top of a coloured background and the white behind the text is also showing up on top of the background. I only want the letters (which are black) to show up, basically..only the letters, not the white behind them.
The reason I want to do this is because I want the font to show on every browser and the one I chose is not a "websafe" font.
Hope this is not too confusing!

Thanks,
Geoff

Select 'Quick Properties' then the 'Shading' tab. Then click on the shading editor icon at the bottom.
Under the 'Fill Settings' tab, check the 'Transparency Mapping box.
Select the colour you want to be transparent ( in your case, white)
Adjust the slider until desired transparency is achieved.

The JPG file format does not support transparency so the jpg's white background will always be present. You need to convert the jpg to a image file format that supports transparency so the white background becomes invisible on your page.

This can be done is SiteSpinner by using the Title tool. SiteSpinner titles are rendered as images, so non web-safe fonts can be used. In addition, using the Geometry Editor, you can choose either the GIF or PNG-8 file format for the title object which will give you a transparent background.

Refer to the Help->Tutorials->Adding Titles.

My apologies if I gave misleading info, but as a test, I just successfully removed the white background of a JPG, using the method I described earlier.

Doesn't adjusting the transparency slider effect the entire image so that the black text also goes transparent?

It would if the colour picker was left at it's default (black), but selecting white seemed to work ok for me. Although, I didn't use text in my test, just a simple piano keyboard jpg graphic (black on a white background)

Larryd, Bailey,
Man, you guys are great..quick, accurate responses!
Worked like a charm. I've been trying to get this to work for a long time and was about to give up. Thanks again!!!!!!

Geoff

Here is the Opposite question: Can you ADD a slightly colored transparent background to a text box without doing a separate box?

No. You can do slightly colored via the Quick Editor shading tab, but it is not transparent in the sense that it would allow some of the background to show through.

For that I suggest a separate rectangle behind the text. Make the text background the default "[no shading]" and make the rectangle in PNG 32 format, setting the transparency you want. This should avoid the alignment issues that we often have when mixing text with images. The transparency may not show on your workpage -- you might need to preview to see it.

So Larry or Bruceee, which formats support transparency and which do not?

Png and gif formats support transparency, jpg format does not.

To clarify a bit on Roma's post, PNG8 and PNG32 (aka PNG24+alpha) support transparency. PNG24 does not. In SS v2.7f, only PNG8 is available, but in SS-Pro and SS-Beta, support for PNG8 and PG32 is available.

Actually PNG 24 (What SiteSpinner calls PNG, as distinct from PNG 8 or PNG 32) does support a single channel of transparency in the same manner as GIF and PNG 8.

For all three formats, SiteSpinner, or you with an image editor, specify a single color to be transparent. This color might be the page background -- let's say it is magenta (Eeek!!) Even though the image itself carries the magenta color, browsers and editors that support transparency will not display magenta, rather they will display whatever is in the background.

Last time I checked, the SiteSpinner workpage does not always support transparency so you may see the transparent color as an actual color (e.g., magenta) on your workpage. But it is OK when you preview or publish.

The latest SiteSpinner versions fully support PNG 32 both on the workpage and for preview/publish.

For working examples, see Adding tranparency to an image.

How stupid of me; Bruce is correct. PNG32 supports opacity; the others support a single transparent color.

I tend to disagree that the latest SS-Pro (2.91e) fully supports PNG32 on the work page. It will support this format if you create the opacity level using the shading editor and set the appropriate format in the geometry editor. But it does not support this format on the work page when imported as an image.

Larry -- you're right, partly. I have just done some testing with images of each type: GIF, PNG 8, PNG 24 and PNG 32.

In adding to a project (via Mona Lisa, or drag and drop) only the GIF displays the transparency on the workpage, but all display the transparency in preview.

However I can contrive an example to copy an image directly to the SS workpage via the Windows clipboard and that loses the transparency for any image with transparency:
e.g. this GIF from the tutorial. Or this PNG 32.

In both cases, using Firefox's "Copy Image" immediately followed by a SiteSpinner "Paste" loses the transparency -- both the workpage and SS preview display a black rectangle. However Firefox's "Save Image As" will save the image and then a Windows Explorer "Copy" of the image followed by a SiteSpinner "Paste" does work.

I'm not sure whether this problem is caused by Firefox, the Windows clipboard or SiteSpinner. But it seems to me the safest option is to save the image first. Then, apart from the transparency not showing on the workpage, all is happy.