Text over picture background

I'm sure you have run into the problem of titles/textboxes who are not legible against a complicated background image. There are some practical approaches to make the text stand out and readable.

Here's a sample of text on a dark background. As you can see it is not very legible.

Option 1: apply some text effects

Select your text and right click on it, choose Format Shape and in the task pane, at the top, choose Text options, followed by the Text effects button. Choose the Glow option, select the colour (white here) and use the sliders to adjust the size and the transparancy. You can also click on the Format tab under Drawing tools and click the Text effects button, Glow and finally Glow options.

Option 2: text color

Select your text and put it in a contrasting color, here in white.

Option 3: Text placeholder filled with transparent color

Select the placeholder, right click it and choose Format Shape, in the task pane at the top choose Shape options, select a color and use the slider to set the transparency. Of course this will limit the transparency to just the textbox.

Option 4: cover with a transparent rectangle

Draw your rectangle on top of the text placeholder. Follow the same steps as in option 3. In the example below I have chosen the theme color Gold with a suitable transparency.