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As stated in the introduction to this section, there are two levels of formatting
in the word processing environment: paragraph and character.
Character formatting applies properties to the characters in a paragraph. It is
concerned with the appearance, size, and color of the actual characters in a word or
paragraph.
This topic explains how to set character formatting properties. All of the
character formatting options are accessible from tools on the PartBar, those tools are
noted in this section where appropriate.
- Select the text you wish to format. Only selected text will be formatted.
- Use the tools on the PartBar to set the text formats:
Use... |
To... |
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Text Font Tool: This tool sets the
text font. Click the tool and choose the font you wish to use from the drop-down
list. The image to the left displays the default font for new text. |
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Text Size Tool: This tool sets the
size of the selected text. Click the tool and select the size you want. Select
Other... to enter a size not displayed on the drop-down list.
Enter the text size, in points, that you want. The default text size is displayed on
the image to the left. |
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Text Face Tool: This tool sets
the format for the selected text (bold, italic, underline, etc). |
Text Color tool
Text Color tool menu bar
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Text Color Tool: This tool sets the
color of the selected text. Click the tool to display a menu bar. The menu bar
contains the following color choices:
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Color: Position the cursor over the
tab, then select the color you want from the palette. The palette displays the
currently active color set. To display other sets, see the Ink
Sets topic for more information. The colors on the palette can be customized.
See the Customizing Inks topic in the Graphics
section for more information. |
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Pattern: Position the cursor over the
tab, then select the pattern or texture you want from the palette. The palette
displays the current set of patterns or textures. To display other sets (including
the texture set), see the Ink Sets topic for more
information. The patterns or textures on the palette can be customized. See
the Customizing Inks topic in the Graphics section for more
information. |
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Gradient: Position the cursor over the
tab, then select the gradient you want from the palette. The palette displays the current
set of gradients. To display other sets, see the Ink Sets
topic for more information. The gradients on this palette can be customized.
See the Customizing Inks topic in the Graphics section for
more information. |
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Transparency: Position the cursor over
the tab, then select the opacity or transparency of the text. 100% represents full
opacity, 0% denotes total transparency. A transparent fill makes whatever items are
behind the item show through. An opaque fill is whatever color, gradient, or pattern
you chose. See the Transparency topic in the
Graphics section for more information. |
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- All of these tools can be torn-off. The font, text size, and text type tools
tear-off to create the text palette (image below). See the Tear-off
Tools topic for more information about how to tear-off a tool.


The text color tool tears-off to display a floating text-color palette (image
below). Tearing-off the tool is very useful if you are making a lot of changes to
the text. The tear-off palette stays open on the workspace as you work.
You can customize the solid colors, patterns, and gradients used in this palette.
See the topic Customizing Inks in the Graphics section for
more information. To display other sets, see the Ink Sets
topic in the Graphics section for more information.

Invisible characters are Spaces, Tabs, Breaks, etc. that
are normally not shown in a document. If you want to see these invisible characters
in your document, select Show Invisibles from the Format
menu.
If the invisible characters are presently shown in your document, and you wish to hide
them, select Hide Invisibles from the Format menu.

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