Formatting content alignment, font selection, lists and tables

The style of writing a text is important, but on the web - even more than in print - the choice of fonts and, more generally, the formatting of the text assumes importance.
The reading on screen, in fact, is much more tiring for the eyes than on a paper, so please exercise due care aspect of "beauty" of the text.

Text alignment

First, when you are davati to a text in digital format, you must choose the 'text alignment (left, right, justified or centered):

• The left alignment, also known as the flag means that the spaces between words are the same but the length of each line of text. The result is perfectly lined up a left margin and right margin of a "fringe". Although it may seem inelegant, this is the best way to lay out on the web. It offers, in fact, a sort of still the eye that is not the same, in going to the head, between the lines. In this case, it would be good to align everything to the left, even the titles.
• Exactly opposite is the right alignment. Doing so, however, the eye becomes fatigued greatly so much so that this kind of alignment is recommended only in special cases (eg, advertising) to create wonder in the reader.
• The other type of alignment that is widely used on the Internet is the so-called "packet" or justified. It is actually borrowed from publishing because it is the standard for page composition books. Lines of text provides all the same, but different size spaces between words. On the Web is likely to turn a paragraph in a Swiss cheese, because of unsightly white gaps between one word and another.
• The center alignment, finally, is used for inscriptions or captions. It belongs to a very classical style popular in the network.

Choosing Fonts

The exquisitely communicative aspects are emphasized on the web, hence the choice of font is important. The word processors have a lot of it (think the beginning was the only one available to the Times New Roman, now made more exciting by the Georgia), and each can be more or less appropriate depending on the circumstances. In general, however, the best for readability and Verdana are made, the 'Arial, Trebuchet MS on the MS and the Georgia Comics. The first two have a style so clean as to be readable even in very small text, if you want a little 'more lively in the text then it is helpful to use the Trebuchet font and between so-called "frivolous" the Comics has arguably the best impact in color.

Let us now analyze the use of italics, bold, underlined and capitalized:

• The emphasis, in addition to serving for loops, summaries and citations, is used to highlight certain words within a text. In particular, fine italics for technical terms, acronyms or foreign.
• Unlike the use of bold type on the web that gives a special connotation to the words as equivalent to load a certain emphasis. The use of bold type identifies a word as "important" and its function is to attract, in addition to the attention of the reader, that search engine (which often use the words marked in bold as some keywords that identify the contents of the page) .
• Use the underlined on the web is completely out of place, except that you insert to show the links. In all other cases, it is inappropriate, confusing right now because it is associated with the idea of ​​a hyperlink.
• To minimize the use of capital letters that, on the web, euqivale to "yell" a word. The advice is to use capital letters only where necessary (eg the initials of the names) and always avoid to write a text entirely in upper case: never do it!

Lists and tables

To help in understanding the text and "bring order" in the content, useful tools are the lists (or lists) and tables.
A list is quick and easy to read, brings out the essential concepts, explains the order in which to perform an action (it is good, for example, to describe the steps to achieve a goal or to make a list of items.
The lists are of two types: ordered lists and numbered lists. Let's look at two examples:

Bulleted list

• blah blah blah
• blah blah blah
• blah blah blah

Numbered List

1. blah blah blah
2. blah blah blah
3. blah blah blah

The table, however, allows you to return a graphical representation of a data set ordered by columns and rows (the instrument table is useful, for example, for reports). Here's an example:

Name	Surname	Role
Mario	Rossi	Director
Charles	White	Employee
Laura	Green	Employee

If used appropriately, lists and tables will prove valuable allies in drafting effective and comprehensible texts.

• <<Previous Lesson
• Help Index
• Next Lesson>>