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

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


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


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

The technology of font effects in bringing viewer’s attention to content:Case: UPPER and lower cased letterBold, Italic, Underline, superscript or subscript

EmbossedEmbossed or ShadowShadowCCoolloouurrssb

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 OneReading Line One

Reading Line TwoReading Line TwoLeading

vA

Tracking, Kerning and Leading

Av vAUnkerned Kerned

Tracking, Kerning and Leading

Reading Line OneReading Line One

Reading Line OneReading Line OneLeading

AscenderAscender :: an upstroke on a character DescenderDescender : : the down stroke below the baseline of a character Leading Leading : : spacing above and below a font or Line spacing TrackingTracking : : spacing between characters KerningKerning : : 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 RomanBookman Rockwell LightCourier NewCentury

Times New RomanBookman Rockwell LightCourier NewCentury

Examples of Serif fontsExamples of Serif fonts

Century Gothic

ArialComic Sans

MSImpactTahoma

Century Gothic

ArialComic Sans

MSImpactTahoma

Examples of San Serif fonts

Examples of San Serif fonts

Serif San 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.

For computer displays, Sans SerifSans 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 <B> tag for making text bold faced.

The <OL> tag for creating an ordered list.

The <IMG> 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

30Hypermedia 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.

31Hypermedia 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.


33

5. 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.


34

4. Hypertext ToolsTwo 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.
