Text drop shadow

[Indie767]

I recently upgraded to IA 2017 and can no longer achieve drop shadow on my text (Born With A Chance text line). When I try, all I get is a big drop shadow circle without any way to control the effect once applied. Here is a pic of the file. Notice the big circle. There is no way to control the shape of the shadow, which should wrap around the text.

I'm assuming with all updates, there is a bug in the drop shadow tool. The instructions posted on the help section do not work. Is a drop shadow a real feature or just vapor ware in IA 2017?  Should I use Photoshop to create drop shadow text an import into IA instead or just scrap AI and use PS instead?

[Monika Gause]

Please select the object and then show us a screenshot of the appearance and the layers panel.

[barbara_a · Accepted solution]

My guess is that there is something selected besides the text or something grouped with the text. Try deleting or hiding the text layer. Then create a new text layer and apply the drop shadow style.

[Indie767]

Thanks Barbara,

That did the trick. However, I still don't have much shadow control like I do in Photoshop. I'm attempting to build a template for a business card but AI doesn't seem well suited for that kind of work.

I don't have my head wrapped around AI, why I should use it and how it's different from PS. I'm going back to Photoshop. It's a better design and drawing tool for me.

Thanks for your help.

[barbara_a]

You're welcome.

I can see why you would want to use Photoshop for the business card because the card is mainly photographic.

Illustrator is great for most business cards that are mainly vector.

[barbara_a]

When designing the card in Photoshop, you'll need to watch out that the text doesn't get pixelized. One way to avoid that is to keep the text 'live' in Photoshop, and when handing off the business cards to a print vendor, save as PDF.

[Monika Gause]

Make sure that you send a PDF for printing. Otherwiese your type will look really bad.