Apply a Stroke, Shadow and Reflection Effect

Apply a Stroke, Shadow and Reflection Effect


Make text, shapes, charts, and other objects in your presentation look more realistic and fun by applying effects such as a reflection, shadow, and stroke on Zoho Show. Further, customize and experiment with each effect to bring out the look you want for your slide objects. 
  • Stroke effect applies a border or outline to the chosen object and improves its emphasis on the slide.
  • Shadow effect drops a shadow beneath the slide object and helps bring a sense of realism to it on the slide.
  • Reflection effect creates a reflection beneath the original object with styles such as a semi-transparent duplication, a water or glass reflection, or a half-shadow blurred effect.

Apply a stroke effect

  1. Choose the shape, picture, text box, or any object to add border. You will see the FORMAT mode on the right pane.

    apply stroke

  2. Enable the Stroke button within the pane and click Color dropdown to choose your stroke color. You can choose from four sets of stroke colors:

    Theme Color  is a set of colors based on the active theme applied to your presentation.
    Standard Color is a set of 10 colors most often used by other users.
    Other Used Colors  is a set containing the colors you have most recently used.
    Advanced Color Palette comes with several color schemes that lets you edit the color palette to match your brand and company.  

    apply stroke color

  3. ​Once you choose the stroke colors, you can further customize them with the following options:
  4. Change the stroke thickness/weight: Type in the weight of the outline within the Shape thickness box or use the Up and Down arrows to increase or decrease the thickness of the border.
  5. Change the stroke border style: Click the Border Style dropdown and choose the type of stroke line you want to apply. 

    stroke type

  6. Adjust the transparency: Enter a percentage of transparency in the Transparency box, or use the Transparency slider to reduce or increase the transparency for the stroke. You can vary the percentage of transparency from 0% (fully opaque, the default setting) to 100% (fully transparent). 

    stroke transparency

  7. Change Stroke End (Style): Click the type of stroke end/joint style you want to apply for the border. There are two types of stroke ends and joint styles.

    Line Join  dropdown lets you specify a style when two lines connect with each other depending on sharp, blunt or a clipped corner like  Round, Miter, and Bevel.

    line join

    Line Cap      dropdown lets you specify a style for the end of the line depending on the geometric shape like  Round, Flat, and Square.

    line cap


Apply a shadow effect

  1. Choose the shape, picture, text box, or any object to add a shadow. You will see the FORMAT mode on the right pane. 

    apply shadow to the object

  2. Enable the Shadow button and click      dropdown to choose the type of shadow. You can choose from two types of shadow effects:

    Outer Shadow:     There are eight types of drop/outer shadow styles available based on the direction in which the shadow falls from the picture. 
    Inner Shadow:  There are eight types of inner shadow styles available based on the direction in which the darkened edge applies in the selected picture.

    shadow type

  3. Once you choose the shadow effect, you can further customize them with the following options:
  • Change the shadow angle: Enter the angle in degrees within the Angle text box or use the up-down arrows to increase or decrease the shadow angle with respect to the picture.

    shadow angle

  • Change the shadow distance: Use the Distance slider or enter a distance value in the text box to increase or decrease the distance of the shadow from the picture.
  • Change the bluriness of shadow: Use the Blur slider or enter a blur value to increase or decrease the blurriness of the shadow against the background. Used to make the edges of the shadow to merge or become dim with respect to the picture background.
  • Adjust the transparency: Use the Transparency slider  or enter a percentage of transparency to reduce or increase the transparency of the shadow. You can vary the percentage of transparency from 0% (fully opaque, the default setting) to 100% (fully transparent).

    Shadow edits


Apply a reflection effect

  1. Choose the shape, picture, text box, or any object to add a reflection. You will see the FORMAT mode on the right pane. 

    apply reflection

  2. Enable the Reflection button and click    dropdown to choose the type of reflection variation you want to apply. You can choose from any of the nine different reflection variations available in the list.

    reflection type

  3. Once you choose the reflection effect, you can further customize using the below options:

  4. Adjust the reflection size:  Use the Size slider or enter the reflection size value in percentages to increase or decrease the size (spread) of the reflection.
  5. Adjust the reflection transparency:  Use the Transparency Slider or enter a percentage of transparency to reduce or increase the transparency of the reflection. You can vary the percentage of transparency from 0% (fully opaque, the default setting) to 100% (fully transparent).
  6. Adjust the reflection distance:  Use the Distance slider or enter a distance value to increase or decrease the distance of the reflection from the picture.

    reflection edit options