THE USES OF TEXT IN MULTIMEDIA Lecture 2

SCA3103 - Introduction to Multimedia Sesi 2003/04 Sem II Objective Media Types What text is How text is created and stored in the computer How text is used in Multimedia Systems Advantages and Disadvantages of using texts

What is Text Basic media for many multimedia systems Texts in the form of words, sentences and paragraphs is used to communicate thoughts, ideas and facts in nearly every aspect of our lives. Multimedia products depends on text for many things: - to explain how the application work - to guide the user in navigating through the application - deliver the information for which the application was designed

What is Text Minimize the texts in multimedia application Texts consists of two structures: Linear Non-Linear

Linear A single way to progress through the text, starting at the beginning and reading to the end

NON- LINEAR Information is represented in a semantic network in which multiple related sections of the text are connected to each other A user may then browse through the sections of the text, jumping from one text section to another.

Text Elements Based on creating letters, numbers and special characters. Text elements can be categories into: Alphabet characters : A - Z Numbers : 0 - 9 Special characters : Punctuation [. , ; ‘ …] , Sign or Symbols [* & ^ % $ £ ! /\ ~ # @ .…] Also known Character Sets May also include special icon or drawing symbols, mathematical symbols, Greek Letter etc.

Font VS Typefaces Is there a difference? How do we differentiate one with the other?

Font A ‘font’ is a collection of characters of a particular size and style belonging to a particular typeface family Usually vary by type sizes and styles The sizes are measured in points, it does not provide exact height and width or text This includes the letter set, the number set, and all of the special character and diacritical marks you get by pressing the shift, option, or command/control keys.

Arial Typefaces Family A ‘typeface’ is a family of graphic characters that usually includes many type sizes and styles A typeface contains a series of fonts. For instance, Arial, Arial Black Arial Narrow and Arial Unicode MS are actually 4 fonts under the same family. Arial Typefaces Family

Fonts Styles A numbers of effects that are useful for bringing viewer’s attention to content: Case: UPPER and lower letter Bold, Italic, Underline, superscript or subscript Embossed or Shadow Colours b Strikethrough

Types of Fonts Two classes of fonts Serif Sans Serif

Serif Text Decorative strokes added to the end of a letter's Serifs improve readability by leading the eye along the line of type. Serifs are the best suited for body text. Serif faces are more difficult to read in small scale (smaller than 8pt) and in very large sizes.

San Serif Text Sans serif faces doesn't have decorative strokes. A sans serif text has to be read letter by letter. Use sans serif faces for small (smaller than 8pt) and very large sizes. Used for footnotes and headlines

Types of Fonts: Examples Examples of San Serif fonts Times New Roman Bookman Rockwell Light Courier New Century Century Gothic Arial Comic Sans MS Impact Tahoma Examples of Serif fonts

Fonts and Faces Ascender -The part of lowercase letters (such as k, b, and d) that ascends above the x-height of the other lowercase letters in a face. Baseline -The imaginary line on which the majority of the characters in a typeface rest. Descender -The part of lowercase letters (such as y, p, and q) that descends below the baseline of the other lowercase letters in a font face.

Weight - The relative darkness of the characters in the various typefaces within a type family, such as thin, light, bold, extra-bold, and black Width - One of the possible variations of a typeface within a type family, such as condensed or extended x-height - Traditionally, x-height is the height of the lowercase letter x

INTERCAP Placing an uppercase letter in the middle of a word, called an intercap For examples used in Company and product names such as WordPerfect, OmniPage, PhotoDisc emerged from the computer programming community coders can better recognize the words they used for variables and commands when the words were lowercase but intercapped.

Tracking, Kerning and Leading Tight tracking Loose tracking Av v A Kerned Unkerned

Reading Line One Leading Ascender : an upstroke on a character Descender : the down stroke below the baseline of a character Leading : spacing above and below a font or Line spacing Tracking : spacing between characters Kerning : space between pairs of characters, usually as an overlap for improvement appearance

FD xhp Text Characteristics Ascender Capital Height x-Height p -Height This example shows the Times New Roman font Ascender Capital Height x-Height FD xhp p -Height Serif Descender

Bit Mapped System Fonts Computers and devices use two methods to represent fonts. One is a bit-mapped font where every character is represented by an arrangement of dots. To print a bit-mapped character, a printer simply locates the character's bit-mapped representation stored in memory and prints the corresponding dots (Raster). Each different font, even when the typeface is the same, requires a different set of bit-maps.

Vector Graphics Fonts The second method uses a vector graphics system to define fonts. In vector graphics systems, the shape or outline of each character is defined geometrically. The typeface can be displayed in any size, so a single font description really represents innumerable fonts. For this reason, vector fonts are called scalable fonts  as they can be scaled to any size. A scalable font is really one font in which the outlines of each character are geometrically defined.

Bitmapped and vector fonts A bitmapped font A vector font

Text Data Files The common data encoding schemes for text are: Plain text (ASCII) is text in an electronic format that can be read and interpreted by humans Rich text is similar but it also embeds special control characters into the text to provide additional features Hypertext is an advance on rich text which allows the reader to jump to different sections within the document or even jump to a new document

Text Data Files Hypertext Plain text This is plain text. It is readable by humans. It can contains numbers (01234) and punctuation (.,#@*&) since it uses the ASCII character set. Rich text This is <bold>rich text</bold>.<br><center>It is also readable by humans but contains additional tags which control the presentation of the text.</center> Hypertext This is <a href=“http://www.w3c.org/”>hypertext</a>. It uses the rich text format shown above but adds the ability to hyperlink to other documents.<hr><img src=“logo.gif”>

Using Text in Multimedia The text elements used in multimedia are: Menus for navigation Interactive buttons Fields for reading HTML documents Symbols and icons

Working With Text Considerations and guidelines when we are working with text: Be Concise Use the appropriate typefaces and fonts Make it readable Consider type styles and colors Use restraint and be consistent

Designing with Text If message is a part of interactive project or website where user is seeking information , great deal of text can be packed on the screen. Too little text on the screen requires annoying page turns and unnecessary mouse clicks and waits. Too much text can make the screen seem overcrowded and unpleasant. If the message is presentation slides for public speaking Use bulleted points on large fonts and few words with lots of white space – audience should focus on the speaker rather than reading the slides.

Portrait VS Landscape Portrait Landscape taller-than-wide Printed docs Wider than tall Monitor screens

Solutions if text is longer than block of text Use scrolling field Put the text into a graphic image in a project window, and let the user move the whole window up or down upon command. This is most appropriate when you need to present text with page breaks and formatting identical to the printed document. This is used by Acrobat Reader for displaying PDF files. Break the text into fields, fit on monitor-sized pages, and design control buttons to flip through these pages

Advantages and Disadvantages of using texts Is relatively inexpensive to produce Present abstract ideas effectively Clarifies other media Provides confidentiality Is easily changed or updated Disadvantages Is less memorable than other visual media Requires more attention from the user than other media Can be cumbersome

Assignment Difference between ASCII and unicode