Changing character attributes

Character attributes generally affect text formatting, and address the font, size, typeface, and color of text in an HTML document. As opposed to the tag-level formatting affected by applying styles, text formatting is local to specific segments of text, such as words or phrases within a paragraph.
Note: You can also edit some of these attributes in the Properties view.

Changing the font type, size, and color

  1. Select a text string.
  2. Select Format > Font to open the Insert Font dialog box.
  3. To change the font type, in the Font field, select a font name.
    Note: If you specify a font face that a Web page user does not have installed, the text is not displayed in that specified font face in the user's browser.
  4. To change the text size, select a number in the Size field. For example, select +2 (the default size is 3). A number preceded by + or - indicates the relative font size.
  5. To change the text color, complete one of the following steps:
    • Click the colored button next to Color, and select a color from the Color dialog box.
    • Select a color from the Color list.
    • Type an RGB value that consists of # followed by six hexadecimal numbers. An RGB value indicates a single color with combination of red, green, and blue. For example, #0000ff indicates blue. If you enter an RGB value directly, the colored button shows the new color value.
    • Click the eyedropper icon Picture of the eyedropper icon and then click anywhere on the screen where you want to pick up the color. The Color button and field will be updated with that color and RGB value.
  6. Click OK.

Emphasizing text with a style

You can emphasize text by making it bold, italicizing it, underlining it, or making it blink. You can also use a fixed-width font, strike-through text, or display text in superscript or subscript characters.

  1. Select the text that you want to apply the style to.
  2. On the menu bar, click Format > Physical Emphasis, and then select the type of emphasis you want from among the options.

    If you select Blink, the <BLINK> tag is inserted automatically. In the Design page, text marked with the <BLINK> tag does not blink while you are editing. It will be displayed as a dotted line if the Show all preference is enabled in the Window > Preferences > Web ToolsNot all Web browsers support the <BLINK> tag.

Emphasizing text with a logical emphasis

Because many browsers are limited or inconsistent in their ability to display text emphasis based on a style (physical emphasis), you can improve the portability of the emphasis you apply by using logical emphasis, which is generally supported by all browsers based on a DOCTYPE specification. For example, if you want to use a monospaced font for a text string, not all browsers might render the text that you identify as Fixed (physical emphasis), but most browsers that support a specified level of standard level of HTML will support Sample (logical emphasis).

  1. Select the text that you want to apply the style to.
  2. On the menu bar, click Format > Logical Emphasis, and then select the type of emphasis you want from among the options.

    If you select Sample, the <SAMP> start and end tags wrap the selected text.

Removing formatting from text

Formatted text is enclosed by a pair of HTML tags such as <FONT> and </FONT> or <B> and </B>. To remove character attributes from the text, you must delete such HTML tags.

  1. Move the cursor into the formatted text so that the focus frame is displayed. If you want to remove the formatting from only a portion of the text, you must select the relevant range.
  2. Select Format > Remove Format.

Changing the color of text by using the Colors view

You can also change the color of text by using the Colors view instead of the Font Attributes dialog box:

  1. Open the Colors view. (Window > Show View > Colors
  2. Select the text string.
  3. Select any color in the Colors view palette, and click the Selected color icon.
Related tasks
Indenting and aligning text and images
Changing element attributes
Inserting special characters
Creating headings and paragraph elements
Validating HTML syntax
Checking spelling in Web pages

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