Character Formatting

The Appearance of Text — the Basics 

A Font has three characteristics

• typeface
  • refers to the design and shape of the characters (Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times New Roman, etc.)
  • Serif fonts
    • characters that have little “ditties” or “swirls” at the ends of the strokes of the letters (such as Book Antiqua or Tmes New Roman)
    • are easy on the eye, less taxing to read, generally more readable and thus best for text
    • the text on this page is serif
  • Sans Serif fonts
    • “sans” means without so these are characters that do not have the “ditties” or “swirls” at the ends of the strokes of the letters (such as Arial or Helvetica)
    • are more legible, that is, easier to recognize at a glance for short bursts of text
    • thus best used for headlines and subheadings
    • this line is sans serif
• type style
  • refers to text attributes such as bold, italics, super/subscripts, underlining, condensed/extended, etc.
• type size refers to the actual size of the characters
  • measured in points (one point = 1/72 on an inch)
  • the “standard” is to use 10 or 12 point type for body text, larger for titles and heads, smaller for notes

Type Styles

• Bolding
  • click on the “bold” button on the toolbaror press Ctrl+B (Windows) or Cmd+B (Macintosh); in either case the bold button on the toolbar will become highlighted
  • the selected text will now be bolded OR if you press this while typing, any new text will be bolded until you press the keys or button again
• Italicizing
  • click on the “italics” button on the toolbaror press Ctrl+I (Windows) or Cmd+I (Macintosh); in either case the italics button on the toolbar will become highlighted
  • the selected text will now be italicized OR if you press this while typing, any new text will be italicized until you press the keys or button again
• Underlining
  • click on the “underline” button on the toolbaror press Ctrl+U (Windows) or Cmd+U (Macintosh); in either case the underline button on the toolbar will become highlighted
  • the selected text will now be underlined OR if you press this while typing, any new text will be underlined until you press the keys or button again
• Other useful keyboard shortcuts for character formatting
  • all caps is Ctrl+Shift+A (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+A (Macintosh)
  • double underline is Ctrl+Shift+D (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+D (Macintosh)
  • small caps is Ctrl+Shift+K (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+K (Macintosh)
  • word underline (does not underline spaces between words) is Ctrl+Shift+W (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+W (Macintosh)
• different character formatting attributes can, of course, be combined!

You should also refer to the Font Dialog Box. It offers an alternative method for formatting fonts.

Fonts and Font Sizes

• changing the font
  • click the down arrow by the Font box on the Formatting Toolbar and scroll down the list to select the font you want
  • OR click in the Font box and type the name of the desired font (be sure that the entire name of the existing font is selected first)
  • in either case, the selected text is changed to the new font OR any new text you type will be in the new font
• changing the font size
  • click the down arrow by the Point Size box on the Formatting Toolbar scroll down the list to select the size you want
  • OR click in the Point Size box and type the desired new point size (be sure that the entire number of the existing size is selected first)
  • in either case, the selected text is changed to the new size OR any new text you type will be in the new size
  • keyboard shortcuts for font size changes
    • Cmd+] (Macintosh) or Ctrl+] (Windows) makes the selected text one point size larger
    • Cmd+[ (Macintosh) or Ctrl+[ (Windows) makes the selected text one point size smaller
    • Cmd+Shift+> (Macintosh) or Ctrl+ Shift+> (Windows) increases the font size of the selected text to the next larger “look good” size
    • Cmd+Shift+< (Macintosh) or Ctrl+ Shift+< (Windows) decreases the font size of the selected text to the next smaller “look good” size

You should also refer to the Font Dialog Box. It offers an alternative method for formatting fonts.

Points to remember

• the bigger the point size, the larger the font
• the “average” size is 12
• some fonts do not look good in all sizes

Font Color

You can change the color of text by using the Font Color button on the toolbar

• this button actually has two parts
  • click on the letter itself and the selected text will be changed to the color indicated by the color bar under the letter A on the button; in this case, the color is red
  • click on the triangle and a popup menu of colors will appear
    • select the desired color from the list
    • the color bar will now change to the selected color

You should also refer to the Font Dialog Box. It offers an alternative method for formatting fonts.

Using the Format Painter Button (Copying Character Formatting)

Once text has been formatted as desired, you can copy the formatting to other selected text as follows

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Copyright©2003
last updated August 13, 2003