Dreamweaver Tutorials

Changing fonts and styles
Use options in the Property inspector or the Text menu to change font settings for the text that you have selected . You can set the font type, style, and size or use the shortcut keys Ctrl+B sets the text to bold and Ctrl+i sets it to ( go on take a guess ) italic.

When you use the Property inspector to apply bold or italic style, Dreamweaver automatically applies the <strong> or <em> tag, respectively the <i> and the <b> tag or not the correct tags to use, but yet again if all your headers are bold you would be much better using CSS styles.

HTML font sizes are relative, not specific, point sizes. Users set the point size of the default font for their browsers; this is the font size that they will see when you select Default or 3 in the Property inspector or Text > Size submenu. Sizes 1 and 2 will appear smaller than the default font size; sizes 4 through 7 will appear larger. Also, fonts generally look larger in Windows than on the Macintosh, though Macintosh Internet Explorer 5 uses the same default font size as Windows.

To ensure consistency with font size use CSS styles with your font size set in pixels, be warned some users may need to see text in a large size, by setting it in pixels the user can not change the font size should he need to.

To change font settings:
To change the font, choose font combinations from within the Property inspector.
Choose Default to remove previously applied fonts; Default applies the default font for the selected text .

To change the style of the fonts , select Bold or Italic in the Property inspector.
To change the font size, choose a size (1 through 7) from the Property inspector or from the Text > Size submenu. While the above may seem the easy way to set the size, color and weight of the font, by changing the property of the body tag using CSS all the above settings can be defined without multiple font tags on the page, this not only makes up pages load quicker, but reduces the amount of bandwidth that your server has to cope with. If you are unsure how to use CSS styles, you may wish to work through the CSS Dreamweaver tutorials on training CD 6.

Modify font combinations:
Choose Text > Font > Edit Font List.
Select the font combination from the list .
The fonts in the selected combination are listed in the Chosen Fonts list in the dialog box. this also shows all available fonts installed on your system. Do not go using a font just because you have it on your system, the user may not, stick with the standard font sets that come pre-defined in Dreamweaver. Some fonts read much better on screen than others, Times new Roman is on of the best fonts to use if you want people to read your web site, again it comes down to keeping it simple.

Accessibility and web design
When you layout your web design on paper, try to make the fonts and colors as near to standard as possible, I am not saying don't use pictures or color in your creation, but use it with a reason, don't drop a picture into your web document without a purpose for it, and don't use text that is so small that you have to strain to read it, in the next set of tutorials we shall cover accessibility in Dreamweaver and show you have to avoid all the pit falls that so many web designers have made.