Text

Text came into use about 6,000 years ago Text in History

The Power of Meaning and the Importance of Text  Titles  Menus  Navigational aids Words must be chosen carefully Words appear in: Test the words you plan to use

What is Text? Words and symbols in any form, spoken or written, are the most common means of communication. Texts in the form of words, sentences and paragraphs is used to communicate thoughts, ideas and facts in nearly every aspect of our lives. Text is a vital element of multimedia menus, navigation systems, and content.

What is Text? 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? 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.

Importance of Text in a Multimedia Presentation Factors affecting legibility of text: Size. The size of the text Background and foreground color. The color in which the text is written in / on. Style. Also known as typeface and font Leading. refers to the amount of added space between lines of type.

Background and foreground color (BG – Light colored, FG – Dark) Size Style Leading

A ‘typeface ’ is a family of graphic characters that usually includes many type sizes and styles. A typeface contains a series of fonts. Understanding Fonts and Typefaces Arial Typefaces Family

Understanding Fonts and Typefaces 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. 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 Fonts

Understanding Fonts and Typefaces The study of fonts and typefaces includes the following: Font styles - boldface, italic, underline, outline Font sizes - point, kerning, leading Cases – uppercase, lowercase, intercap Serif versus Sans Serif The sizes are measured in points 1 point = 1/72 inch

Font Styles Strikethrough

Font Sizes Font size is measured in points. Character metrics are the general measurements applied to individual characters. Kerning is the spacing between character pairs Leading is the space between lines. Reading Line One Reading Line Two Leading vA

Tracking, Kerning and Leading AvvA Unkerned Kerned

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

Cases A capitalized letter is referred to as 'uppercase', while a small letter is referred to as 'lowercase.' Placing an uppercase letter in the middle of a word is referred to as intercap.

Serif Versus Sans Serif Times New Roman Bookman Rockwell Light Courier New Century Times New Roman Bookman Rockwell Light Courier New Century Examples of Serif fonts Century Gothic Arial Comic Sans MS Impact Tahoma Century Gothic Arial Comic Sans MS Impact Tahoma Examples of San Serif fonts SerifSan Serif Serif is the little decoration at the end of a letter stroke.(tiny horizontal lines at the top and bottom ) Sans serif fonts do not have a serif at the end of a letter stroke.

Serif fonts are used for documents or screens that have large quantities of text. Where San serif fonts are used for headlines and bold statements. Sans Serif For computer displays, Sans Serif fonts considered better because of the sharper contrast

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

Menus for Navigation A user navigates through content using a menu. A simple menu consists of a text list of topics.

Interactive Buttons A button is a clickable object that executes a command when activated. Users can create their own buttons from bitmaps and graphics. The design and labeling of the buttons should be treated as an industrial art project.

Fields for Reading Reading a hard copy is easier and faster than reading from the computer screen. A document can be printed in one of two orientations - portrait or landscape.

Fields for Reading Monitor use wider-than-tall aspect ratios called landscape Most books use taller-than- wide orientation, called portrait Don’t try to shrink a full page onto a monitor portrait landscape

possible solutions if you are working with a block of text that is taller than what will fit: Put the text into a scrolling field. This is the solution used by web browsers. Put the text into a single field or 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 Adobe’s popular Acrobat Reader for displaying PDF files. Break the text into fields that fit on monitor-sized pages, and design control buttons to flip through these pages. Design your multimedia project for a special monitor that is taller than it is wide (portrait) or a normal monitor rotated onto its side. Dedicated “page view” monitors are expensive; they are used for commercial print-based typesetting and layout. Video controllers can rotate the text display for you:

HTML Documents HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is the standard document format used for Web pages. HTML documents are marked using tags. An advanced form of HTML is DHTML. DHTML stands for Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language. DHTML uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

HTML Documents Some of the commonly used tags are: The tag for making text bold faced. The tag for creating an ordered list. The tag for inserting images.

Symbols and Icons Symbols are concentrated text in the form of stand-alone graphic constructs. They are used to convey meaningful messages. Symbols used to convey human emotions are called emoticons. Icons are symbolic representations of objects and processes.

Animating Text To grab a viewer’s attention: let text “fly” onto screen rotate or spin text, etc. Use special effects.

Hypermedia and Hypertext Hyper media provides a structure of links Hypertext words are linked to other elements Hypertext is usually searchable by software robots

30 Hypermedia and Hypertext 1.Hypermedia: Multimedia is defined as the combination of text, graphics, and audio elements into a single presentation. When the user assumes control over the presentation, it is called interactive multimedia. Interactive multimedia becomes hypermedia when a structure of linked elements is provided to the user for navigation and interaction.

31 Hypermedia and Hypertext 2.Hypertext System: Hypertext is defined as the organized cross- linking of words, images, and other Web elements. A system in which words are keyed or indexed to other words is referred to as a hypertext system. A hypertext system enables the user to navigate through text in a non-linear way.

32 3.Hypermedia Structures: a.Links: Links are connections between conceptual elements. Links are the navigation pathways and menus. b.Nodes: Nodes are accessible topics, documents, messages, and content elements. Nodes and links form the backbone of a knowledge access system. Hypermedia and Hypertext

33 3.Hypermedia Structures (continued): c.Anchors: Anchor is defined as the reference from one document to another document, image, sound, or file on the Web. The source node linked to the anchor is referred to as a link anchor. The destination node linked to the anchor is referred to as a link end. d.Navigating Hypermedia Structures: The simplest way to navigate hypermedia structures is via buttons. Location markers must be provided to make navigation user-friendly. Hypermedia and Hypertext

34 4. Hypertext Tools Two functions common to most hypermedia text management systems are building (authoring) and reading. The functions of a builder are: Creating links Identifying nodes Generating an index of word Hyper systems are used for: Electronic publishing and reference works. Technical documentation. Educational courseware. Interactive kiosks. Electronic catalogs. Hypermedia and Hypertext