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Write a POST and/or change FONT Size, Colour and TypeFace

To write a post:

At bottom of the yellow menu pane on right hand side

Click ‘Log in’

If you are already Logged in Click on “Site admin”

This will take you to the “Welcome to Wordpress”page.

Click on “Write a post”

This will take you to the Text editor – Select the VISUAL tab.

You can now type in a Title and the text of your post.

Basic text editing functions are available from the buttons above the text entry box.

Changing the Font Size, Colour and TypeFace

You will notice that the default text size is very small and not too easy to read. Also in the Visual editor you have no control over the Type face of the font or it’s colour. It is possible to have full control over your text which appears on the blog by using HTML (HyperText Markup Language). If this sounds a bit to complicated it can be, but to learn a few HTML Tags that will enable you to control the Font attributes is easy. So if you are feeling adventurous have a go. It will be very rewarding when you see your Post in glorious technicolour using your favourite font face at whatever size your heart desires.

HTML uses ‘TAGS’ that are inserted into the body of the text at points where you want to change the format. Mostly they take the form of an START tag which is placed at the beginning of the portion of text and an END tag which unsuprisingly is placed at the end of the text. Font start HTML tags have this format

 and close with 

A font start tag has three ATTRIBUTES - Font SIZE, Font FACE and Font Color. The Font HTML tag can contain ANY or ALL of these for example:-

So an example of some text formatted ARIEL face, SIZE 6 in GREEN would look like this

The rain in Spain etc

This is an example block of text containing HTML font tags

Once upon a time there were three bears, daddy bear, mummy bear and baby bear.One day daddy bear said to mummy bearLet’s go for a nice walk in the woods…………..This would display asOnce upon a time there were three bears, daddy bear, mummy bear and baby bear.One day daddy bear said to mummy bear

Let’s go for a nice walk in the woods…………..

And that is pretty much all there is to it. Note that if you have a paragraph break in the text (or a one liner) then it needs to have a new start tag at the new beginning (even if there is no change in the format) other wise it will revert to the default attributes. It is not necessary to have End tags at the ends of the paragraphs, in fact you do not need to include an End tag in the post at all!You can insert new start tags anywhere in the text to change the attributes (of even one letter). This style will then be maintained until the next start tag.COLOR NOT COLOURNote the spelling of ‘color’ and make sure that you type it in properly also the space between each attribute is necessary as are the quotation marks around the value. If it does not format properly then it is probably due to a mistake of this nature.If you have a lot of paragraphs or ‘one liners’ it is easier to type in all your text first and then add your Start tag to your first paragraph. Then copy and paste it at the beginning of each of your paragraphs. All that remains then is to change the attribute values to give you your desired effect. After you have done a couple of posts it will be second nature (almost).

How to have more control over the number of colours available (a bit more complicated)

As you will have noticed the colour can be specified textually (eg. “red”). This is easy but it does limit you to a fixed range of colours. A more versatile but more complicated method is to specify the different colour levels for the red, green and blue componants that are mixed to produce the colour on your monitor. To do this we must resort to a different numbering system based upon sixteen instead of ten (decimal). This number base is termed hexadecimal. I know this sounds complicated but really it is’nt so stick with it.

Hex-a-decimal (hex = 6 and decimal = 10) uses the numbers 0 to 9 as in the decimal system and the letters A to F to represent the numbers from 10 to 15. So 0 to F represents 0 to 15.

The colour attribute can be expressed like this:- Notice the # sign and that there are six hexadecimal digits. These can be divided into three groups FE 64 A3.Each of these groups specifies the colour level for the RED GREEN BLUE componants respectivly. Two hexadecimal digits can represent a number between 0 and 255 thus representing this many discrete levels of each individual colour. The full six digits can represent a number between 0 and 16,777,216 (256×256x256) so this is how many colours are available when mixed! Here are some examples to clarify this.

(PURE BLACK – All turned fully off)
 (PURE RED – red turned fully on)
 (PURE GREEN – green turned fully on)
 (PURE BLUE – blue turned fully on)
 (MEDIUM GREY – all turned half on)The best way to get to grips with this is just to experiment for a while with various combinations of numbers. So have fun.NOTE:- Because of the limitations of the text editor when the VISUAL tab is enabled it tends to screw up the formatting when you manually insert HTML tags. It is best to turn this facility off and this can be done from the bottom of the text editor page.Locate “Click here to edit your user settings:” and click the link. In the new window which appears Untick “Use the visual editor when writing”. Then click the “Update profile button” and close the window.Only the CODE tab will now be available in the text editor. Just type in the text as normal and insert your HTML tags where necessary

Andrew XXXXX

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Write a POST and/or change FONT Size, Colour and TypeFace