Dreamweaver 8[c] The Missing Manual

As you could guess, the commands in the Text menu format and modify the document's text:

• Indent . Adds one level of indentation to everything within the current block-level element (paragraph, headline, bulleted list).

• Outdent . Removes one level of indentation from everything within the current block-level element.

• Paragraph Format . Applies a paragraph format, such as Heading 1, Heading 2, or preformatted text, to all the text in the current block-level element. You can also choose None from the submenu to remove the paragraph formatting.

• Align . Aligns text in the selected paragraph to the left margin, center, or right margin of the document. If the paragraph is inside a table cell or layer, Dreamweaver aligns it with the left, center, or right of that cell or layer.

• List . Turns the selected paragraph into an ordered, unordered, or definition list . You can edit the list's format by selecting the Properties option from the submenu.

• Font . Lets you choose from a list of common font combinations for application to the selected text. When displaying text, your visitor's browser moves down the list of assigned paragraph fonts until it finds one installed on its system (Chapter 3). You can create your own combination of paragraph fonts by choosing Edit Font List from the submenu.

• Style . Applies predefined text stylessuch as Bold, Italic, or Strikethroughto the selected text.

• CSS Styles . Lets you create new CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) styles and apply them to selected text (Chapter 6). You can also choose to attach an existing style sheet to the current document, or export the document's own style sheet for use in other sites.

• Size . Applies a new size to the selected text. Sizes range from 1 (the smallest) to 7 (the largest); as described in Chapter 3, HTML sizes are relative, and they change depending on your visitors ' browser preferences. CSS offers a much better alternative to sizing text that is not only more flexible, but also uses less code and is more in line with current Web standards and techniques (see Chapter 6).

• Size Change . Increases or decreases the selected text's size relative to the document's base font size (which is set to 3 by default). The same note about CSS mentioned in the previous item applies here, too.

• Color . Opens the standard Mac or Windows color-picker dialog box, so that you can choose a color to apply to the selected text. Macintosh : You can choose from a variety of color palettes, including CMYK, RGB, HTML (Web safe), HSV, and HLS. Windows : In general, the Property inspector's Color box is a better way to assign Web colors to text.

• Check Spelling . Checks the current document for possible spelling errors (see Section 2.4).