The Motive Web Design Glossary
HTML-text, live text
HTML-text (or ‘live’ text), is webpage copy that has been entered as HTML code (rather than displayed as part of an image file or as a Flash element). The key benefit of HTML-text over non-HTML alternatives is that content can more easily be customised and repurposed/translated.
Content display customisation
Changing webpage text size
Most browsers enable webpage text size to be increased or decreased.
In Internet Explorer, from the File menu (at the top of the screen) select:
View, then:Text Size- Choose a text size setting, (ranging from
SmallesttoLargest)
The chosen setting will then be used for all webpages subsequently viewed.
Depending on the choices made by the webpage designer/developer, the user can customise how HTML-text looks, including:
- line-length (by resizing the width of the browser window),
- text size,
- the typeface used to display content, and
- background colours/colour contrast.
Content translation
Depending on how the webpage has been programmed (authored or marked-up), HTML-text can be translated:
- text can be copied from the webpage to other computer programs (such as a word processor or email application)
- the page design can be reformatted for different browsing devices, for example a design that works on a desktop computer screen can be changed to work on a smaller, handheld screen
- the page design can be modified for different media types, for example a horizontal screen design can be altered to suit the vertical proportions of the printed page
- search engines can index the content (and in-turn determine the relevance that should be assigned to that page in search engine rankings)
- assistive technologies, such as screen readers, can speak HTML-text without requiring supplementary accessibility hooks. Text that is part of an image cannot be spoken unless an alt attribute has been specified.
: accessibility, alt attribute, anti-aliasing, authoring, CSS, HTML-email, markup, pixel, web fonts , Unicode.
References and further reading
- Latency-friendly customized bullets using Unicode characters (Nadeau Software Consulting)
A range of methods for customising bullet symbols, including standard HTML bullets, background images, and Unicode characters.
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