As you build your Web pages, you’ll find that entering, selecting, correcting, moving, and copying will become commonplace. You can use all of the text functions as you do in any other Microsoft program. With Microsoft Expression Web, you can use all the common moving, deleting, and copying functions that you have already grown accustom to. You can also find and replace and format text just as you would in Word or Excel.

When entering text, you might find it necessary to add a bulleted or numbered list. You can also create sublists and collapsible lists to use on your pages. Choosing the alignment of your text, your line spacing, and paragraph indents all work the same way as other Microsoft programs.

A style is a collection of formatting settings saved with a Web site or template that you can apply to text, graphics, and tables at any time. Expression Web comes with a standard set of styles you can apply to text. If you modify a style, you make the change once, but all text tagged with that style changes to reflect the new format. In Chapter 12, you’ll learn how to create a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), which is style information that can be referenced by individual or multiple Web pages.

Of course, while working with all of this text, using Expression Web’s spell checker is a must. You can spell check, add familiar or custom words to your dictionary, check for common grammatical errors, or use the Thesaurus to enhance your Web pages. International Microsoft Expression Web users can change the language that appears on their screens by changing the default language settings.

There are two methods of entering text on a Web page: as part of a template or from scratch. When starting out, we strongly recommend that you work from a template. If you are working with templates, you can begin by editing the boilerplate text that opens as part of the template.

Select the template text that you wish to replace and begin typing. The boilerplate text disappears and your text begins flowing into that section of the template. Be sure to constrain your text to the original area provided in the template and, if necessary, edit what you wish to say to make the copy fit within the allotted space.

The other way to enter text is on a blank page. Create a new Web page, and then start typing. When you enter text, Expression Web automatically places text inside a container as an HTML tag. An HTML tag is code inserted in a document that specifies how the document, or a portion of the document, should be formatted. HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes. The opening tag (<p>) marks the start of the paragraph code and a closing tag (</p>) marks the end of the paragraph, denoted by the forward slash (/). When you select a container, the tag type appears as a tab identifying the container.???

The first step in working with text is to highlight, or select, the text you want. Once you’ve selected it, you can format, replace, delete, copy, and move (cut) words, sentences, and paragraphs within one Web page or between Web pages. When you finish with or decide not to use a selection, you can click anywhere in the page to deselect the text.

You can edit text in Expression Web several ways. First, you can select the text you want to edit, and then type text to replace it or press the Delete key to remove it. Another way to edit text is to place the insertion point in the text, and then type to insert text or press the Backspace or Delete keys to remove it. The Backspace key deletes text to the left, while the Delete key deletes text to the right.

Everyone makes mistakes and changes their mind at some point, especially when creating or revising a document. With Expression Web, you can instantly correct typing errors by pressing a key. You can also reverse more complicated actions, such as typing an entire word, formatting a paragraph, or creating a chart. With the Undo button, if you change your mind, you can just as easily click the Redo button to restore the action you reversed.

As you enter or modify text on a Web page, the text automatically wraps within a container to create a paragraph. If you want to create a paragraph, all you need to do is press Enter, which inserts a paragraph break. When you insert a paragraph break, Expression Web automatically creates a new paragraph container, which is denoted with a tab labeled with a p. If you want to insert a line, yet still remain in the same paragraph, you can insert a line break. Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference between a paragraph or line break, so Expression Web provides the option to show or hide formatting marks. In addition to showing or hiding line breaks and paragraph marks, you can also show or hide spaces, comments, script blocks, container position, aligned elements, and other code-related elements.

Insert a Line Break

• Click where you want the text to break, and then press Shift+Enter.

• Click where you want the text to break, click the Insert menu, point to HTML, click Break, click the break option you want, and then click OK.

• Click where you want the text to break, click the plus sign (+) next to Tags in the Toolbox panel, and then double-click the Break icon.

Text can be moved and copied in Expression Web just like in other word processing software. You can move or copy text within a Web page, between Web pages, or to another program. When you cut (for a move) or copy text or graphics, Expression Web places it on the Clipboard. To complete the copy or move, you paste the data stored on the Clipboard in another location. You can use the commonly used Paste command or the Paste Text command, which provides options to control line breaks and white space. When you paste an item with the Paste command, the Paste Options button appears allowing you to keep or remove formatting or keep HTML or Text only. When you use the Paste Text command, the Paste Text dialog opens allowing you to select the option you want. To copy or move text or graphics without using the Clipboard, you can use a technique called drag-and-drop. Drag-and-drop makes it easy to copy or move text or graphics short distances on your Web page.

Indenting paragraph text allows you to shift text to make it stand out. You can indent text to create an outline or indent the first line of a paragraph. You can use the Increase Indent Position and Decrease Indent Position buttons on the Formatting toolbar to quickly change text position or use the Paragraph dialog box to set more precise positioning. Line spacing is another way to vary the look of a Web page. The lines in a Web page are single-spaced by default, but you can easily change line spacing to double or 1.5 lines to allow extra space between every line. Sometimes, you’ll want to add space above and below certain paragraphs, such as for headlines or indented quotations to help set off the text.

Text alignments vary the look of a Web page and help lead the user through the text. You can align text along the left or right margin, in the center, or equally across the page. Left-aligned text works well for body paragraphs in most cases, but other alignments vary the look of a page and help lead the reader through the text. Right-aligned text, which is even along the right margin and ragged at the left margin, is good for adding a date to a letter. Justified text spreads text evenly between the margins, creating a clean, professional look, often used in articles. Centered text is best for titles and headings. You can quickly change text alignment using alignment buttons on the Common or Formatting toolbar.

Expression Web comes with a host of symbols and special characters for every need. Insert just the right one to keep from compromising a Web page’s professional appearance with a hand-drawn arrow («) or missing mathematical symbol (å). Before you insert a symbol, be aware that not all browsers support all symbols. Be sure to test your pages on several browsers.

Horizontal lines have a variety of uses in the construction of a Web page. Whether they’re used to separate sections of a page or to underline an important piece of text, you have several decisions to make. Lines have a variety of properties that you can modify, including width, height, alignment, and color.

The best way to draw attention to a list is to format the items with bullets or numbers. For different emphasis, you can change any bullet or number style to one of the predefined formats. You can also customize the list style or insert a picture as a bullet. If you move, insert, or delete items in a numbered list, Expression Web sequentially renumbers the list for you. Every time you press Enter, a new bullet will appear. To end a list, press Enter twice.

In addition to the standard bulleted and numbered lists, you can also create indented lists, or sublists. A sublist creates multilevels in a list. You can create a sublist with a bulleted or numbered list. You use the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar to create the multilevels. If you want to insert a line to create a sublist, you can press Tab or use the Increase Indent button.

A style is a collection of formatting settings saved with a Web site or template that you can apply to text, graphics, and tables at any time. If you modify a style, you make the change once, but all text tagged with that style changes to reflect the new format. Expression Web provides you with Built-In Styles, or you can create your own User-Defined Styles. Both built-in and user-defined styles are available from the same style list while you edit a page. When you create a user-defined style, you can also create an embedded Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), which is style information that is applied to the open Web page.

You can use the Styles list arrow on the Common toolbar to quickly format text as a heading or definition list. A heading provides structure for a Web page by providing visual indicator of what is important. The default styles include six different headings, labeled Heading1 <h1> through Heading6 <h6>. Heading1 is the largest size and Heading6 is the smallest size. If you have a list of definitions you want to include in a Web page, you can use the Define Term <dt> and Definition <dd> styles to format the information you want to provide.

You’ll often want to format, or change the style of text to add emphasis to part of a Web page. Boldface, italics, underlines, and other text effects are toggle switches, which means you simply click to turn them on and off. For special emphasis, you can apply multiple formats, such as bold and italics. You can also change the font typeface and size. Using one font typeface for headings and another for main text adds a professional look to your Web page.

Expression Web comes with simple special effects you can quickly add to text on your Web pages. Some of the effects add style to your text, such as Blink or Overline, while others define the type of text, such as Definition or Citation, on your Web pages.

Expression Web comes with a standard set of 16 colors. In addition to the standard colors, Expression Web allows you to add more colors to the set for use on your Web pages. More Colors are additional colors that you can add to each color menus—the Font Color button menu, for example. More Colors are useful when you want an object or picture to always have the same color. They are also useful when you want to change the color of an object to a specific color, but the standard colors don’t not have that color. Colors that you add to a specific color menu appear in all color menus and remain in the menu even if the color scheme changes.

Suppose that you discover you have misspelled or want to change a word throughout an entire Web page. You do not need to read through the document to find every instance of the word and manually change it. The Find and Replace commands can do that for you. Expression Web can find every instance for you, and walk you through the Web site from page to page until all the corrections have been made. In addition to text, you can also find and replace code. You can search one or more Web page or an entire Web site. When you search multiple pages, the results appear in a Find panel.

In addition to finding and replacing text and code, you can also find and replace HTML tags. The Find and Replace dialog box includes an HTML Tags tab, which you can use to search for and replace HTML tags. You can search one or more Web page or an entire Web site. When you search multiple pages, the results appear in a Find panel, which makes it easy to view and work with the results in different page view. The Split view allows you to search for tags without having to change your view.

Using Expression Web, you can correct spelling errors on a Web site immediately, or create a task for each page with an error and correct them later. Begin by opening the page whose spelling you want to examine. If you commonly use words unique to a hobby or profession that would not appear in a normal dictionary, or are unlikely to be part of the common vernacular, consider adding them to your dictionary so that they will not repeatedly be called into question during spell checks.

Before you can use a custom dictionary, you need to enable it first. You can enable and manage custom dictionaries by using the Custom Dictionaries dialog box. In the dialog box, you can change the language associated with a custom dictionary, create a new custom dictionary, or add or remove an existing custom dictionary. If you need to manage dictionary content, you can also change the default custom dictionary to which the spelling checker adds words, as well as add, delete, or edit words. If you mistakenly type an obscene or embarrassing word, such as ass instead of ask, the spelling checker will not catch it because both words are spelled correctly. You can avoid this problem by using an exclusion dictionary. When you use a language for the first time, Expression Web automatically creates an exclusion dictionary. This dictionary forces the spelling checker to flag words you don’t want to use.

International Expression Web users can change the language that appears on their screens by changing the default language settings. Before you can use a different language, you need to install the Microsoft Expression Web Language Pack for the languages you want to use in a Web site. After you install a language, you can set the default language for a Web page, Web site, and a custom dictionary. If the text in your Web page is written in more than one language, you can designate the language of selected text so the spelling checker uses the right dictionary. However, the keyboard you use to enter text determines the language used by the spelling checker.

As you type, a red wavy line appears under words not listed in Expression Web’s dictionary (such as misspellings or names) or duplicated words (such as the the). You can correct these errors as they arise. When Expression Web learns the spellings of words you use regularly, it even automatically corrects some errors as you type. If the unrecognized work is correct, you can add it to the dictionary.

Repeating the same word in a Web page can reduce a message’s effectiveness. Instead, replace some words with synonyms, words with similar meanings, or find antonyms, words with opposite meanings. If you need help finding exactly the right word, you can use the Thesaurus.

When you type text in a page, Expression Web applies a set of default text attributes. You can change the default text for Design and Code views. In Design view, you can change the default proportional and fixed-width fonts. A proportional font has variable spacing between letters, while a fixed-width font has the same spacing between letters. Proportional fonts are typically used for Web page text, while fixed-width fonts are typically used for working with code. When you are working with large amounts of text, a fixed-width font is easier to read.

Instead of applying one font to text in a Web page, you can apply a set of fonts, known as a font family, in order to increase the likelihood that the visitor’s computer system will have one of the fonts you specify. Expression Web comes with a few font families when you install the program, such as Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif. You can modify an existing font family or create your own. When you create your own, use fonts that are the same relative size, so using any of the fonts in the font family looks the same on any computer.

If you have a word processing document that you want to use as a Web page, you can copy all or part of the text file, and then use the Paste Text command on the Edit menu to insert the contents. Expression Web allows you to copy text in several formats, including Rich Text Format (.rtf), Text Files (.txt), Word 2007 (docx), Word 97-2003 (.doc), and HTML (.htm, .html).