Internet Marketing -- Text and Formatting Attributes
There's a really large and clear explanation on this topic in the book Web Pages That Suck by Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis. This book has lots of other very good information and I highly recommend it.
Bold
Bold can be used to make your text stand out among the rest of your words.
Italic
Italic is used to emphasize words and for titles. The problem is that italic is really hard to read on computer monitors and looks terrible. To overcome the problem in this document and on web pages I bold the Italic and it looks OK.
Underlined Text
This is really bad for web pages and ebooks because it makes people think they can click on the word and be hyperlinked somewhere else. Don't use underlining in web pages.
ALL CAPITAL TEXT
ALL CAPITAL TEXT IS CONSIDERED POOR NETIQUETTE (IT'S AS IF YOU WERE SHOUTING) AND IS REALLY HARD TO READ. IT IS OK TO EMPHASIZE A WORD OR TWO AND IN SHORT HEADLINES.
Initial Caps
This Is When The First Letter Of Each Word Is Capitalized. Again, this is OK for short subheadings, but not for long strings of text.
Align Left
Usually the default on computers, which will align your entire text to the left margin of your web page.
Centering
Don't center all the text on a page. It looks amateurish. Do you know why? It's because it is. Headlines are OK to center.
Align Right
Using this feature will align all your text to the right margin.
This feature is great when you are trying to line up numeric figures.
Justify
This feature will create a nice clean alignment on the left and right margin. Thereby leaving no ragged edges on the left or right hand side of your web pages.
Bullets
1. Numbered bullets can be used when you are making a list.
· Round or other shaped bullets can be used to “highlight” your points or to bring attention to the reader to important text.
TOM’S TIP:
Remember your
visitors that see your web page may see it in different screen sizes, with
different browsers, different fonts, different colors, and different screen
resolutions. All your beautiful and hard work can be for nothing when just one
of these features causes trouble for your visitor. The best thing to do is keep it simple.