Читать книгу Word 2016 For Professionals For Dummies - Dan Gookin - Страница 5

I blame the Macintosh. A menu on the first MacPaint and MacWrite programs was called Font. It listed a variety of what are more properly termed typefaces. That’s what the typesetters call them. A font is a combination of typeface, size, style, and other attributes. But never mind; the term font has stuck.

❯❯ A typesetter is someone who puts type on the page. The process once involved block letters, hot lead, and meticulous craftsmanship. Today, typesetters are considered layout artists. They follow the guidelines set by a graphic designer to create a page of text or, in the digital realm, a web page.

❯❯ A graphic designer is someone who chooses elements that look good on a page. This list includes typefaces, margins, graphics, and other design elements. The designer and layout artist are often the same person.

❯❯ Though typeface is the preferred term, I use both typeface and font throughout this book. These days, both terms are interchangeable, though technically not the same.

Describing text

You might remember when you learned to write and your teacher handed out ruled paper. You copied letters and words and used the rules (lines) as a guide. Those rules weren’t arbitrarily drawn on the page. They come from the history of printed text, where everything has a name and a purpose, as illustrated in Figure 1-1.

FIGURE 1-1: Text essentials.

Here are descriptions of the text measurements shown in Figure 1-1:

Baseline: Text is written on the baseline.

Cap height: Capital letters extend from the baseline to the cap height.

X-height: Most lowercase letters rise to the x-height, which is named after the lowercase letter x and not anything mysterious.

Ascender: Taller lowercase letters extend to the ascender height, such as the t shown in Figure 1-1.

Descender: Lowercase letters that dip below the baseline drop to the descender.

The purpose of these lines is consistency. Though letters have different shapes and sizes, these rules help the reader absorb the text. When letters disobey the rules, the text becomes more difficult to read.

Text is also measured from side to side. The yardstick that’s used is the width of the big M. That measurement is called an em. In digital typefaces, the em square is a box used for designing typefaces.

Half of an em is an en, which is also the width of the letter N. That measurement isn’t as precise as the em, because, in many typefaces, the en isn’t exactly half the width of an em.

Two ems make an M&M, which is delicious and often eaten in great numbers.

❯❯ Grade-school lined paper features the baseline, x-height, and cap height lines. As you progress through school and even into the workplace, only the baseline remains as a guide, though the other lines still exist in the world of fonts.

❯❯ In many fonts, the cap height and ascender are at the same position.

❯❯ The x-height can be set high, as shown in Figure 1-1, but often it marks the midpoint between the baseline and cap height. Its location depends on the typeface design.

❯❯ Font width varies depending on the font’s design, whether the font is heavily weighted, and whether the font is proportionally spaced or monospaced. See the next section for details on these terms.

❯❯ A dash equal in width to the M character is called an em dash. A space equal in width to the M character is an em space.

❯❯ The en dash is equal in width to the letter N. An en space is a space of the same width.

❯❯ A hyphen is a character, shorter than the en dash.

❯❯ Use a hyphen to hyphenate words or as a minus sign.

❯❯ The hyphen appears on the PC’s keyboard, next to the 0 key on the top row and in the upper right corner of the numeric keypad.

❯❯ Use an en dash to specify a range, such as pages 22–24.

❯❯ The keyboard shortcut to generate an en dash in Word is Ctrl+Alt+(hyphen) where the hyphen key is next to the 0 on the PC’s keyboard.

❯❯ The em dash is used to create a parenthetical clause or as a replacement for the colon. Violent clashes erupt between copy editors over whether to add spaces on either side of the em dash. The current victors believe no spaces should cushion the ends of the em dash. These people are incorrect and will be punished eventually.

❯❯ In Word, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+(hyphen) produces an em-dash character, where the hyphen key is on the numeric keypad.

❯❯ In most modern typefaces, the en dash isn’t exactly half the width of the em dash, but it remains equal to the width of the uppercase N.

❯❯ The typeface used in Figure 1-1 is Calibri, which is Word’s default body text or Normal style font.

Understanding text attributes

A font has many attributes, which define the way the font looks and how it can be best put to use. Many of the font attributes are related to Word’s text formatting commands. Here’s the Big Picture:

Typeface: The font name is called the typeface. Yeah: Technically, a font is a typeface. Apple, you really screwed up everyone.

Serif / sans serif: The two styles of typeface are serif and sans serif. A serif is a decoration added to each character, a small line or embellishment. Serifs make text easier to read, so serif typefaces are preferred for body text. Sans serif typefaces lack the decorations and are preferred for document titles and headings. Figure 1-2 illustrates serif and sans serif typefaces.

FIGURE 1-2: Typefaces of differing styles.

Proportional / monospaced: A proportionally spaced typeface uses different widths for each letter, so a little I and a big M are different widths. A monospaced typeface features letters all the same width, as you’d find on a typewriter. Figure 1-2 illustrates both proportional and monospace typefaces.

Size: Typeface size is measured in points, or units equal to of an inch. So, a typeface 72 points tall is 1 inch tall. The measurement is made from the typeface’s descender to its cap height. On a computer, the size is measured by an em square, which is the width and height of the letter M.

Weight: The weight value is either part of the typeface itself or added as an effect, such as the bold text attribute. But for many fonts, the weight is selected with the typeface, as shown in Figure 1-3.

FIGURE 1-3: Typefaces of differing weights and slants.

Slant or slope: A typeface’s slope refers to how the text is angled. The most common slope is italic. Oblique text is similar to italic, but subtler. The slant can also tilt to the right, which is more of a text effect than anything you’ll commonly see associated with a typeface.

Width: Many typefaces feature condensed or narrow variations. These fonts include the same basic design, but the text looks thin or skinny.

Effects: Finally come the effects, which have little to do with the typeface. These affects are applied by Word to add emphasis or just look cool. See the later section “Text Effects Strange and Wonderful.”

Text on a line can be manipulated to change the way it looks. For example, tracking can be adjusted to scrunch up characters on a line of text. Kerning can be applied to bring letters closer together. Later sections in this chapter describe the details.

❯❯ Fonts are installed into Windows, not Word. You must access the Control Panel (even in Windows 10) and choose the Appearance and Personalization category. Click the Fonts heading to view installed fonts.

❯❯ Fonts are installed on your PC in the Windows\Fonts folder.

❯❯ Proportionally spaced typefaces are easier to read.

❯❯ Computers traditionally use monospace fonts for programming and other historically text-only documents. The benefit is that the text’s characters line up evenly into columns.

❯❯ The old typewriters produced monospace text. The two styles, elite and pica, refer to text approximately 10 points and 12 points tall, respectively. The term pica is also a unit of measurement, equal to 1⁄6 of an inch – which is 12 points.

❯❯ Beyond proportional and monospace and serif and sans serif, typefaces can be scripted, foreign, decorative, ornamental, or a plethora of variations.

❯❯ Select a heavy typeface over applying the bold text format. Word may select the heavy typeface automatically when you set the bold attribute. The result is that the heavy typeface looks better than when Word attempts to make text look bold.

❯❯ Other typeface weights, not shown in Figure 1-3, include Book, Roman, and Heavy. Still other variations might be available, depending on how the font is designed and named.

❯❯ Italic and oblique text are two different types of slant. Italic is often a specific design, whereas oblique is simply a subtle slant to the standard typeface.

❯❯ Just as you should choose a heavy typeface instead of applying the bold text format, if an italic or oblique typeface is available, use it instead of applying the italic text format. See the next section.

Selecting the proper typeface

The general rule for text design is to use sans serif fonts for titles and headings and use serif fonts for document text. Like all rules, this one is broken frequently and deliberately. Even in Word, the default document theme uses sans serif Calibri as both the body text and headings typeface.

If you have trouble choosing fonts, take advantage of the Design tab’s document themes in Word. Follow these steps:

1. Click the Design tab.

2. In the Document Formatting group, select a theme.

Each theme combines typeface elements with colors and other tidbits to help your document maintain its overall appearance.

As you point the mouse at various themes, the document’s text updates to reflect the theme’s attributes.

❯❯ Avoid using decorative or ornamental typefaces in your document. They look nifty but make reading difficult.

❯❯ A scripted typeface looks handwritten, and you might feel it adds a personal touch. For a short note, an invitation, or a thank-you card, that typeface works well. For a long document, however, a scripted typeface hinders readability.

❯❯ Choosing a new document theme is optional. You can always create your own document styles to set heading and body typefaces.

❯❯ Until Word 2007, the normal body text typeface was Times New Roman. The heading typeface was Helvetica or Arial.

FONT SPECIFICATIONS AND STANDARDS

Beyond typeface and other typographical nonsense, a few digital standards rule the world of computer fonts. You may have heard the names: TrueType and OpenType.

TrueType is a digital font standard created by Apple and Microsoft. It was designed to compete with Adobe’s PostScript fonts, which rendered better on the computer screen back in the early 1990s. OpenType is the successor to TrueType, which was developed in the late 1990s.

To determine which font is which, open the Font dialog box. Choose a font, and its type is confirmed below the Preview window.

Other fonts are stirred into the mix and flagged as non-TrueType in Word. These fonts may not look as good as TrueType/OpenType fonts. You may also find that some of Word’s advanced text-effect commands don’t apply to non-TrueType/OpenType fonts.