- Establish a few formatting attributes in the options bar. The op-
tions bar provides access to a few of the most common formatting
attributes, which are ways to modify the appearance of live text.
Labeled in Figure 11-7, they are:- Font family. Click the second-from-left arrow to see a list
of typefaces available on your system. I prefer the term font
families (or just plain font) because, technically speaking,
most typefaces include multiple stylistic alternatives, such
as bold and italic.
If you purchased the full Adobe
Creative Suite, select Adobe Caslon
Pro (look under the Cs). If you
don’t have this Caslon, select
Times, Times New Roman, or a
similar font. - Type style. The type style pop-up menu lists all stylistic al-
ternatives available for the selected font. Change the style
to read Bold. - Type size. If using Caslon Pro, set the type size to 33 points.
For Times or Times New Roman, set the value to 38 points. - Antialiasing. The next menu determines the flavor of
antialiasing (edge softening) applied to the text. We’ll
examine this option a bit more in Step 21 (page 365), but
for now, either Crisp or Sharp will suffice. - Alignment. The alignment options let you align rows of
type to the left, center, or right. Click the middle icon ( )
to create center aligned text. - Text color. The color swatch determines the color of the
type. For the moment, press the D key and then the X key
to make the swatch white. - Character panel. Click the rightmost of the type tool icons
to display the Character panel, which offers access to sev-
eral more formatting attributes. We’ll need this panel a
few steps from now.
You can change every single one of these formatting attributes
after you create your text. Getting a few settings established
up front merely saves a little time later.
- Font family. Click the second-from-left arrow to see a list
Font family
Type style Antialiasing Text color
Type size Alignment Character panel
Figure 11-7.
378 Lesson 11: Text and Shapes