Text Style

Text Style Submenu

This submenu provides manipulation of several text style attributes.

A submenu is provided for adjusting the Kerning of a run of text. Kerning is a term indicating how much the following character is shifted from normal offset for a particular character.

Several of these text characteristics may be examined or altered using the Graphic Details Inspector or the main system font palette.

Some of these characteristics may not be applicable to a given font. For example, Arial Black does not have an italic typeface. Hence this item would be disabled if Arial Black text is selected. If the enable states of these menu elements does not seem correct, use the main system font palette to investigate the issue.

Oblique is provided as an alternate to Italic. Some typeface families do not have an italic variant, in this case the Oblique transformation is used for italics.

Italic will apply an italic typeface to the selected font, provided the font has an italic typeface.

Oblique will apply a right tilt of 20% to the selected text.

The Overline item is used to add a line over (on the top) of a character or group of characters. This is the nomenclature often used to indicate the "average" of a mathematical variable.

The underline submenu is used to add an underline or strike though characteristic to a selected range of text.

Heavier and Lighter is used to increase the weight of the typeface. For many fonts this is the same as applying Bold or Unbold to the font. If a font accepts differing weights of typeface this interface will apply these characteristics.

A submenu is provided for adjusting the Kerning of a run of text.

The ligature submenu provides control over selection of one of 3 possible ligature applications, none, standard and all or fancy. Ligatures apply primarily to non-English character sets. English text has no essential ligatures and only two standard ligatures - for "fi" and "fl" -- all others being considered more advanced or fancy.

The baseline submenu provides control over selection subscripts and super scripts. Line spacing may be specified with parameters on the paragraph form palette. Leading is another common term for the baseline parameters.

The copy and paste font selection is used to copy or paste just the font aspect of a selected group of text.

If a range of text is selected these actions apply to the selected text. If a text graphic(s) or other graphic(s) with annotation are selected these commands apply to all the associated text.

The ligature characteristic determines the use of combined fonts. A font family may contain special combined characters to be used when two characters appear next to each other. The text system provides control to not use ligatures, or use the standard ligatures, or all available. Which ligatures are standard depends on the script and possibly the font. Arabic text, for example, requires ligatures for many character sequences, but has a rich set of additional ligatures that combine characters. English text has no essential ligatures, and typically only two standard ligatures, those for "fi" and "fl" -- all others being considered more advanced or fancy. However a stylistic script font may require several ligatures for proper appearance.