Semi-transparent text fills in PowerPoint

When you pick a color for a shape, PowerPoint gives you the option to set its transparency. However, when you select a color for your font, this dialog box does not appear. How to recreate this effect in PowerPoint? Here is the work around (PowerPoint 2007).
  1. Select the text
  2. Right click
  3. Format text effects
  4. Text fill
  5. And now you can change the transparency!