Create text with a shadow using CSS

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Text with shadow using CSS

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This tutorial explains how to create a text with shadow using CSS.
It has been tested and works with the following browsers:

• Firefox 2.0.0.4
• Internet Explorer 6.0
• Mozilla 1.7.13
• Opera 9.21
• Netscape 8.0.4

You can see it in action here: Demo.

First let's create a structure of our text container together with a text.

<div id="wrapper">
<span class="firstlayer">Text with shadow using CSS</span>
<span class="secondlayer">Text with shadow using CSS</span>
</div>

Now we are going to apply some formatting using CSS.
We are applying a position: relative; to the text container (#wrapper). This way all other elements within #wrapper which are using absolute positioning will be positioned relatively to the #wrapper not the body tag.
Then firstlayer and secondlayer get their absolute positions with secondlayer being 2px lower and to the right.
At the end we need to apply z-index to indicate which layer should be on top of the other.

html, body {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
body {
background-color: #DDDFD7;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px;
text-align: center;
}
#wrapper {
width: 700px;
height: 200px;
margin: 20px auto 20px auto;
padding: 0px;
text-align: left;
position: relative;
border: solid 1px #fff;
}
.firstlayer {
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: bold;
color: #fff;
position: absolute;
top: 20px;
left: 20px;
z-index: 1;
}
.secondlayer {
font-size: 18px;
font-weight: bold;
color: #aaa;
position: absolute;
top: 22px;
left: 22px;
z-index: 0;
}

And that's it - any questions or suggestions - please get in touch.