How to make text background transparent without a white box?

[DuvLady]

I have tried a couple different ways in affinity photo. I can use "multiply" under layers panel to get transparency, but If I want to add an effect, it only applies the effect to the outer box. Have tried creating text with both frame text tool and artistic tool. still inner white box. Even though I go to swatches or color, it says there is "none". What am I missing? I'm sure it is something simple. Help!? Thank you in advance. file attached I was working on.

linkedIn background 4.22.afphoto

[Alfred]

How did you create the text object with the white background? Control over the text background is only directly available in Affinity Publisher, but if you copy the text object that has a transparent background you can use the ‘Paste Style’ command to apply the same style to the text object that currently has a white background 

[Old Bruce]

Are you wanting to have the same sort of outer glow the Graphic has? The text is too thin to really show the effect. You may be better off using the Art Text tool to type out the web address. Now use the outline instead of the outer glow effect.

What is happening is you have a pair of pixel layers instead of Text Layers and the various effects will be applied to the area of the Pixel layers.

[DuvLady]

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

How did you create the text object with the white background? Control over the text background is only directly available in Affinity Publisher, but if you copy the text object that has a transparent background you can use the ‘Paste Style’ command to apply the same style to the text object that currently has a white background 

I simply typed it in using the text tool. I tried using both the affinity photo text frame tool and the artistic text tool with same results - white background box. Am use to this not being an issue in photoshop. so I'm not sure what I am doing wrong? the background on colors appears to be set to "none". I even tried rastering the text with same results. still have white background box. 

[DuvLady]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Are you wanting to have the same sort of outer glow the Graphic has? The text is too thin to really show the effect. You may be better off using the Art Text tool to type out the web address. Now use the outline instead of the outer glow effect.

What is happening is you have a pair of pixel layers instead of Text Layers and the various effects will be applied to the area of the Pixel layers.

No, I wasn't really worried about effect. It was just irritating that to get rid of white background in a simple text box, I had to apply the layer effect "multiply" - just seems such a simple thing. I know I must be doing something wrong. Or there is a setting somewhere for text in affinity photo that needs to be changes?

[Old Bruce]

4 minutes ago, DuvLady said:

I had to apply the layer effect "multiply"

Okay, the Multiply is a layer blend mode, not an effect. You may find that it can also be Darken. Layer Blend modes are Wonderfull Things, when you have a few moments just mess about with them on practice documents.

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, DuvLady said:

I simply typed it in using the text tool. I tried using both the affinity photo text frame tool and the artistic text tool with same results - white background box. Am use to this not being an issue in photoshop. so I'm not sure what I am doing wrong? the background on colors appears to be set to "none". I even tried rastering the text with same results. still have white background box. 

Rasterizing the text is a bad idea because it renders the text uneditable. If you haven’t already done so, try what I suggested earlier: copy the text object that has a transparent background and then use ‘Edit > Paste Style’ to apply the copied format to the text that currently has a white background.

[DuvLady]

Ok thank you all for your many suggestions and reminders about correct verbiage, and rasterization. I am sorry if I was short. Time is of the essence some days. I may be a newbie to affinity but I am not a newbie to graphic design. Too many years to count. I know rasterizing type isn't good - it was just a method, like checking a car to find out what the problem was. The problem was not an effect, the problem I was having was the dratted white box behind my type that filled the type box. I finally figured out the problem. I had copied and pasted my web link from my email. For some reason maybe because it was a hyperlink, I am really not sure. It created a white box when pasted into affinity photo. When I created a fresh text box, there was no white box. So I simply retyped the wording in a fresh box. Easy-peasy. I have noticed a similar problem in affinity publisher when copying and pasting from email or text. It is not as easy as adobe with their many years of refining the programs. Hopefully, some of these little tiny weird issues will go away with future updates.  There was absolutely no reason to copy and paste text from designer of publisher. Thank you all for trying to help me with this very strange issue. I appreciate it.

[Old Bruce]

32 minutes ago, DuvLady said:

I finally figured out the problem. I had copied and pasted my web link from my email

Try using the Paste Without Format in the Edit menu when pasting from other applications.

[LouiseM77]

I had this problem and found the answer here - very easy but not obvious unless you have the text frame panel open! 

 

[Graham Pa]

In Affinity Designer 2, to get rid of the non-transparent default background of a text box...when you've got your text formatted/sized/etc how you want it:

(1) convert the text to curves.

(2) in the layers panel group for your curves (former text box characters), find the seperate layer for the background color (appears under the bottom-most curve (former letter/character) and...either turn-off it's visibility, or delete that one layer altogether.

I tend to first duplicate my original text box (and turn off its visibility in the layers panel), prior to converting the text box to curves, so i have the text to come back to, etc if needed.

[Alej]

On 9/12/2023 at 8:40 AM, Graham Pa said:

In Affinity Designer 2, to get rid of the non-transparent default background of a text box...when you've got your text formatted/sized/etc how you want it:

(1) convert the text to curves.

(2) in the layers panel group for your curves (former text box characters), find the seperate layer for the background color (appears under the bottom-most curve (former letter/character) and...either turn-off it's visibility, or delete that one layer altogether.

I tend to first duplicate my original text box (and turn off its visibility in the layers panel), prior to converting the text box to curves, so i have the text to come back to, etc if needed.

Yeah, I'm still having this use.

I think if I start with a PNG file, then save that to afphoto for further editing and layers, every new text layer created via the "T" tool will have that white background rectangle (which appears when converting to curves like mentioned above).

Anybody on Serif or Canva taking a look on that?

Excuse me the video size, don't know how to 'thumbnail it' or similar.

 

 

[Eigys]

This thread is generally pretty old, but Alej's last comment is exactly what I'm struggling with as well (Affinity Designer 2.4.2, but also in some older versions). There are five colors that I can control:

1. Character color
2. Character outline color
3. Character background color
4. Character underline color
5. Character strikethrough color

And there's one that I can't figure out how to control, which I'll call "Text frame background color" but it happens with both frame and artistic tools.

If I start a new document, all is okay. But at some point during my development process, all my new text boxes (artistic or frame style have the same issue) have a non-transparent background. It's not always white, and I can't figure out what starts it to happen. I've even see the 'default' background color change at some point, but despite my best efforts, I can't figure out what I'm doing that sets the color. Here is a video that demonstrates what I'm seeing; the text frame background color is black in this case.

 

Some facts (as I've experienced them):

1. It starts happening at some point. New documents are okay.
2. The color is affected by something I'm doing, but usually I notice a few hours in and can't trace it back.
3. Copy/paste of existing (unaffected) text boxes is okay; the background is fine. This is my (irritating) workaround.
4. I can't see anything in Text Styles that points to the issue.

I've attached a striped-down `background_test.afdesign` file that demonstrates the issue. If you open it, maybe you'll be able to reproduce it.

background_test.afdesign

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, Eigys said:

I've attached a striped-down `background_test.afdesign` file that demonstrates the issue. If you open it, maybe you'll be able to reproduce it.

Opening it in Publisher, and switching to the Text Frame panel, I can see that there's a Black background color set.

How it got there will probably remain a mystery, unless you have a file where it worked and then started happening, and you can check the History to see what happened. And if you have a sample like that, Saving with History might be useful.

You can resolve for future uses of Artistic or Frame Text by selecting one of those tools, and then using Edit > Defaults > Revert, possibly followed by Edit > Defaults > Save.

[Eigys]

It worked!! @walt.farrell thank you 100 times. By using Edit > Defaults > Revert and then saving the document, the defaults are reverted and my sanity is restored. There does seem to be some kind of weird bug if you have an empty Artboard selected when you Revert... it turns grey. Not sure if this is just rendering or something more sinister.

If I ever figure out how this gets in this background color situation in the first place, I'll let everyone know.