Font Basics


Fonts are designed as mono-spaced or proportionally spaced fonts. Mono-spaced fonts, such as Courier, use the same amount of space for each character in the character set. Proportionally spaced fonts, such as Arial, adjust the amount of space needed to the specific character(s) being used.

This means some fonts have different sized spaces for different letters . Most of this book is done in proportionally spaced fonts. Let's look at a sample paragraph in our main font:

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

What if this were in a mono-spaced font, such as Courier? It would look like this:

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

See how much more space the second paragraph uses than the first one? This is because the letters are not compressed to take up the optimum space for each character. You also probably found the second paragraph harder to read than the first. This is because your eye expects the spaces for letters to change. Keeping each letter the same size breaks the flow of the characters and makes your eye work harder to transmit the information to the brain.

Fonts also are designed as either serif or sans serif. In the font world, serif is commonly used to mean " foot ". Serif fonts have little feet on each character. Sans serif (literally, "without feet") fonts have no feet. The majority of the text for this book is in Garamond, a serif font. However, the chapter and section headings are in Century Gothic, a sans serif font, as shown:

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Fonts are measured in points (12, 14, etc.). However, not all font sizes are created equal. Look at our sample paragraphs again. They seem to be different sizes, don't they? While the fonts for each paragraph are different, each is in the 12-point size for the font.

Fonts also have attributes. Attributes tell the font how each character should appear. The most common attributes are bold, italics, underline, superscript and subscript. Again, each font designer determines how the attributes are interpreted. Let's take our sample paragraph one more time and look at it in Garamond with some of the various attributes turned on:

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Bolding the text changed the weight of each letter as well as the heaviness of the ink for each letter. Some fonts look better bolded, some are unreadable when bolded. Play around with the fonts on your system to determine which ones you like and which ones you don't.

Italics can be a real nightmare when used with certain fonts. Notice the difference between the letters only italicized in the sample paragraph and the characters italicized and bolded. Is one easier to read than the other?

Because italics fonts tend to be more compressed than regular fonts, the busier the font is, the harder it is to read in italics. Some people do not like having any text in italics. Since each person has an opinion about which fonts look okay in italics, play around with sample text and decide for yourself. I like italics on larger fonts, but only if the font stays clean and easy to read. My husband does not like italicizing any fonts. While reviewing this chapter, he wanted me to recommend to NEVER use italics!

Most font designers specify how the font looks in bold, italics, underline and the basic combinations of these three. However, some fonts do not have a bold version; others do not have an italicized version. Some fonts only come in uppercase. Even if there is a version defined for a given font, it may not be installed on the computer in use.

PowerPoint adjusts the attributes of any text, as long as the font used has the attribute defined. In some cases, PowerPoint offers a software-generated version of the font when the official versions are not installed.

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Tip 20: Strikethrough

While PowerPoint lets you change the attributes of any piece of text on a slide or in the notes, it does not let you automatically create text with lines through it. In order to create the illusion of strikethrough text, you need to create a drawn line and lay it over the appropriate text.

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What About Kerning?

Kerning is the automated ability to change the spacing between specific sets of side-by-side letters. It allows the eye to move over the letters more easily and provides a more professional looking text appearance. Unfortunately, no version of PowerPoint supports kerning at this time. Basic character spacing is supported, but kerning is not.

How Do I Change Fonts?

Fonts in individual placeholders, textboxes and autoshapes are changed by selecting the object or the text and then using Format Font or the font list on the formatting toolbar. To change the fonts on an entire presentation, change the master or use the Replace Fonts option, which is discussed on page 117. Because different fonts are different sizes, changing the font may change the word wrapping within the placeholders.




Kathy Jacobs On PowerPoint
Kathy Jacobs On PowerPoint
ISBN: 972425861
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 166

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