Applying Text Styles | Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 for Windows & Macintosh

The most common text formatting is to make text bold or italicized, and of course Dreamweaver can do that. But it can also apply several other text styles, some of which are for specialized uses, as shown in Figure 4.20 and Table 4.1 .

Figure 4.20. Dreamweaver offers a number of useful (and not so useful) text styles.

Table 4.1.

Text Styles
S TYLE	D ESCRIPTION
Bold	Makes text boldface.
Italic	Italicizes text.
Underline	Underlines text.
Strikethrough	Text is shown with a line through it.
Teletype	Reminiscent of an old typewriter. Usually shows text in a monospaced font such as Courier.
Emphasis	Italicizes text on screen. Causes screen readers to stress importance in speech.
Strong	Bolds text on screen. Causes screen readers to add additional importance to speech.
Code	Depicts programming code, usually in a monospaced font.
Variable	Marks variables in programming code. Usually displayed as italics.
Sample	Meant to display sample output from a computer program or script. Usually displayed in a monospaced font.
Keyboard	Meant to depict text a user would type on the keyboard. Usually displayed in a monospaced font.
Citation	Used to mark citations and references. Usually displayed as italics.
Definition	Used to mark the first, defining usage of a term in a document. Usually displayed as italics (Safari on the Mac displays this as regular text).
Deleted	Marks deleted text. Shown the same as strikethrough.
Inserted	Marks inserted text. Shown the same as underlined .

Many of these text styles are meant for displaying programming or script code, so they won't be used at all on many sites. Others, such as Underline and Strikethrough, are deprecated in the HTML 4.01 standard, which means that they are obsolete and may not work in future browsers.

To apply a text style:

1.	Select the text you want to change.
2.	Choose Text > Style, then choose the style you want from the submenu. The text's appearance changes.

Tip

Actually, by default Dreamweaver does not use the traditional  and  HTML tags for bold and italic, respectively. Instead it uses  and  (for emphasis). The latter tags are preferred as part of best practices, because they are better handled by screen readers used by visually impaired users. If you want to switch Dreamweaver back to using  and  , choose Edit > Preferences (Dreamweaver > Preferences), and in the General category of the Preferences dialog, deselect "Use  and  in place of  and  ."