Composer TutorialAdvanced Formatting - The Hidden Goodies |
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Composer TutorialAdvanced Formatting - The Hidden Goodies |
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we go any further, it's time to see just exactly what you've been doing.
Believe it or not you have been writing html code. Now some people will
argue this point but remember what I said in the beginning? It doesn't
matter how you do it, just as long as you're comfortable with the way you
do it.
Want to see the code you've written so far? Well, just move your cursor up to the Title Bar and click on View then Page Source. What you will see is the html code that has made your page look the way it does. It looks pretty foreign at first but as you go along keep checking the Page Source to watch what actually happens. Believe it or not, sooner or later, it will start to click. |
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Okay, so what happens if you don't like the type of bullets that Composer
picked out for you? Change them! Click on any one of the sentences that
has a bullet. Next go up to the Title Bar and click on Format then Character
Properties. The Character Properties dialog box will come up and you will
see 3 tabs to choose from. Click on Paragraph.
Here you will find different ways to display your bullets. For right now, leave everything as it is and just change the Bullet Style. I had started with a solid square and changed mine to a solid circle. Click Okay and that's how easy it is to change a bullet style. Not bad, huh? |
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So what if you don't want bullets and you want to make a numbered list.
Same thing. Click anywhere in a sentence that has a bullet then go to Format
then Character Properties. Once again go to the Paragraph tab. This time
we'll change 2 things. Change the Style to Numbered List then change the
Number Style to 1,2,3... Click Okay.
Whoop! Hey what happened! Does yours not have numbers in it? Don't panic just yet. That's one of those quirks I told you about in the beginning. What you are probably seeing right now is the pound sign (#) where your bullets were and no numbers, right? Well, click on the Preview button, say yes to save your changes and presto! there are the numbers. I don't have a clue why Composer does this but I can tell you that I thought my copy was damaged the first time I tried to do this. I think it was only by blind luck that I figured out this "feature". |
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What about this font thing? Yeah I know, I've been ducking that, haven't
I? Okay, here's the scoop on fonts. Netscape's default viewing font is
Times New Roman. Unless the person changes that in his preferences, that
is font he will view pages with.
You can change what font you want people to view your page in quite easily. Highlight all of your text and then click on the Font menu. The choices you have are from all the fonts that are loaded on your machine. For now choose Arial. Here's the reason you need to be careful about what font you change your text to: Not everyone will have the same fonts that you do. If you pick a wonderful script font that other people don't have, they will more than likely see Times New Roman. You see their browser will search for the font you specified and if it doesn't find it then it will default back to its default. Got it? |
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| Here are some safe fonts for you to use that almost all operating systems have and almost all browsers will recognize: Arial - Comic Sans - Times New Roman - Verdana - Courier New.Right now these are the safest ones I know. They are on *most* operating systems. |
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| Okay
what about those fancy lines they put in html pages? Well, nothing could
be easier than adding a horizontal line like the one above. On the Composition
Bar (located above the Formatting Bar) is a button called H. Line. Click
on it. Whatever the default setting is, that is what you'll get.
Don't like the looks of it or where it's placed? We can change that. Put your mouse over the horizontal line and double click on it. This will bring up the Horizontal Line Properties box. Here you can change the height of the line and the width, which is determined on the percentage of the window space you want it to go across. You can change its alignment and also determine if you want it to have 3D shading or not. Play around with the options on this one as it is strictly a personal preference type of thing. Remember, each time you make a change, click on the Preview button to see how it looks on a viewing page. Don't like it, change it. |
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| There
is one more thing this tutorial should point out and that's the spell checker.
Just like a word processor, Composer has a spell checking feature. You
can access it by clicking on the Spelling button in the Composition Bar.
It will always start at the top and work it's way down the entire document.
It's not a bad feature to have around but don't totally depend on it. It's
not totally grown up yet like a true word processing spell checker but
it has a handy feature in it called Learn.
If you are spell checking a document and you come across a word you know is right, click on the button and it will store that word in a special dictionary. When spell checking this document, Composer didn't like the word Arial. Since I knew it was spelled right I added it to my special dictionary with the Learn button. Now no matter what document I'm checking it will always know the word Arial and not think it's misspelled again. |
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| So in this tutorial we learned how to do a little advanced formatting with the bullets and numbered lists options. We learned about fonts and which ones to use. We learned how to make a horizontal line and how to use the spell checker to our advantage. What next? Graphics, maybe? |
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| Move on to: Adding Graphics |
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| Go back one page. |