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Picking a Font Feeling artistic? Want to add a fancy heading to your page?
Think twice and read on.
You may find a really nice font that's exactly what you want.
You install it on your computer and use it on your webpage.
You're talking to a friend and are so excited about what you did that
they decide to visit your site and check it out. Later your
friend asks you, "What was so great about the font?" All they
saw was a plain old ordinary font they've seen a million times before.
So what happened? They didn't have that font installed on
their computer.
Unfortunately, when a visitor views a webpage, the fonts that are
displayed are based on what is installed on their computer. If
the font you programmed with is not on their computer, it determines a
default font and uses that instead. The good news is that your
visitors still get to see what you created - the bad news is that it
may not look as nice as you originally intended.
When you create webpages, there are really only a few fonts you can
use and feel sure that it will display in all browsers, all computers,
exactly or close to what you intended.. That's why so often you see
Arial or Times New Roman types when viewing websites - they're loaded
on most computers and they're often set up as a "default" font to use
when a webpage calls for a font that's not installed.
See some of the links on the bottom of the page for information on
some guidelines for what types of font to use when typing up your
website.
So how can you get that fancy font heading you're looking for?
Create a graphic.
Since you can't create a fancy font heading just by typing it and
be sure others will see it like that, you can get the same effect by
creating a graphic using one of the fonts on your computer.
There are a lot of fancy graphics programs out there, but if you're
not a graphic artist you can still create a fancy font header graphic
for your webpage if you are using Windows.
- Open Microsoft Paint - which is located in
Accessories on your Start menu. A blank image will
show on the screen in Paint.
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- The size of the image box is probably not
defaulting to the right size for a "header" graphic,
so you'll need to change it. Click on Image >
Attributes to open the options to change the size.
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- If you're not sure how large to make it, first try
a width of 4 inches and height of 1 inch. Depending on
the length of your e-mail address and whether you want
to include other information on the graphic, you might
have to change it later, but usually that is large
enough. Click OK and you will return to a
revised image box at the new size.
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- Check that your toolboxes are visible. Click
on Tools and make sure that there are checkmarks
beside Tool Box, Color Box, and Status Bar. If
not, clicking on each one will turn it on (or off).
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- If you want a background color (other than white)
on your graphic:
Choose the paint can icon from the
left tool box by clicking on it.
Then choose a color from the color box at the bottom
of the screen by clicking on it.
Next click inside the image box to fill it with color.
NOTE: If you are more conversant with Paint, you
could actually insert a light graphic as a background
instead of just a plain color.
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- If you want to put a border around the graphic:
Choose the line-draw icon from the left tool box (the
top one shown in a white box - looks like a slash) and then choose the
width of line you want from the box at the bottom of
the tool box - here the largest one is chosen..
Choose a color from the color box at the bottom of the
screen (will need to be a different color from
background chosen previously)
Choose the box icon from the left tool box.
Put the mouse cursor in the upper left corner of your
image box and hold it down while you drag a box around
the edge of your graphic and then release the mouse.
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- Next you're ready to add in your text.
Choose the A-shaped icon on the left tool box for
inserting text.
Holding down the mouse button, click near the upper
left corner and draw a text box almost as large as the
graphic.
A Font toolbar will appear somewhere in the window. Here you can choose
font type, size, bold, italics, underline - however
you want your text to look. Every font that is
installed on your computer should be in the list.
Then click inside the text box you drew and type your
what you want to see on the graphic.
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- Now that you are finished creating your graphic,
it's time to save it.
Click File > Save As.
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- When the dialogue box appears, you will need to
figure out what folder you want to save it to by using
the drop-down menu at the top.
Then at the bottom of the window type a
name in the "File Name" box and choose GIF in
the "Save as Type" box. (See the
image-type guidelines.) You
definitely want to use GIF if you want to make it
transparent later.
Click "Save" and your image is ready to use.
NOTE: A warning box may appear when saving as
GIF, explaining some colors may be lost. That's
fine, say Yes to continue.
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Choose File > Exit to close
Paint.
Then open your web design program and insert the
graphic where you want it to be.
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