Inserting and Formatting Text > Setting fonts, styles, color, and alignment > Text properties

Text properties

The Property inspector displays the formatting attributes of text selected in the Document window and lets you change them. You can also use text properties to specify links and targets for selected text.

Place the insertion point in a text block to view text properties in the Property inspector (if necessary, display the Property inspector by choosing Window > Properties). The Property inspector initially displays the most commonly used properties. Click the expander arrow in the lower right corner to see all properties.

See also Using paragraphs and headings and Setting and changing fonts and styles.

Format applies a default block style to the text. Heading styles are used to apply a standardized hierarchical structure to formatted text. The smaller the number of the heading, the bigger the heading will be. For example, Heading 1 describes the largest heading. These formats are rendered and displayed based on how different browsers interpret the tags, offering little consistency and control over layout and appearance.

Font Combination applies the selected font combination to the text. Browsers display text using the first font in the combination that is installed on the user's system. Default specifies the default font for the selected text. Common fonts for Netscape and IE include Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, and so on.

Size applies either a specific font size (1 through 7) or a font size (+ or -1 through + or -7) relative to the basefont size (the default is 3). There is no way to specify a particular point size for fonts in an HTML tag; instead, use CSS style sheets to specify the size for different kinds of text.

Text Color displays the text in the selected color. Select a browser-safe color by clicking the color box, or enter a hexadecimal value (for example, #FF0000) in the adjacent text field.

Bold and Italic apply the respective style.

Left, Center, and Right Align apply the respective alignment.

Link makes the selected text a hyperlink to the specified URL. Click the folder icon to browse to a page in your site; type the URL; drag the Point-to-File icon to a file in the Site window; or drag a file from the Site window into the box.

Target specifies the frame or window in which the linked page should load. The names of all of the frames in the current document appear in the list. If the specified frame does not exist when the current document is opened in a browser, the linked page loads in a new window that has the name you specified. Once this window exists, other files can be targeted to it. You can also choose from the following reserved target names:

	_blank loads the linked file in a new, unnamed browser window.
	_parent loads the linked file in the parent frameset or window of the frame that contains the link. If the frame containing the link is not nested, the linked file loads into the full browser window.
	_self loads the linked file in the same frame or window as the link. This target is implied, so you generally don't need to specify it.
	_top loads the linked file in the full browser window, thereby removing all frames.

Unordered List turns the selected paragraph or heading into an item in a bulleted list. If no text is selected, a new bulleted list is started.

Ordered List turns the selected paragraph or heading into an item in a numbered list. If no text is selected, a new numbered list is started.

List Item opens the List Properties dialog box. See List properties.

Indent and Outdent indent or remove indentation from the selected text by applying or removing the blockquote tag. In a list, indenting creates a nested list and removing the indentation unnests the list.