Gobe Productive User's Guide - Character Formatting

- Working with word processing frames
- Views & layers
- Paragraph Formatting
- Character Formatting
- The table frame
- Text Wrap
- Tabs
- Page numbers and other text fields
- Page, frame & line breaks
- Styles
- Spell checking
- Find & replace
- Writing tools
- Columns
- Headers & Footers
- Footnotes & Endnotes
- Named selections
- Placing images & graphics into word processing documents

# Character Formatting

Format Characters | Show / Hide Invisibles

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.

## To Format Characters

1. Select the text you wish to format. Only selected text will be formatted.
2. Use the tools on the PartBar to set the text formats:

> Use... | To...
> | 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.
> | 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.
> | Text Face Tool: This tool sets the format for the selected text (bold, italic, underline, etc).

> Text Color tool

> Text Color tool menu bar

> 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:

> | 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.
> | 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.
> | 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.
> | 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.

- 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.

> ## Show / Hide Invisibles

> 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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