Multimedia Software

Tools
Instructor: Mr. Awil Mohamud
Overview
Importance of text in a multimedia presentation.
Understanding fonts and typefaces.
Using text elements in a multimedia presentation.
Font editing and design tools.
Text in Multimedia Applications
Of all multimedia elements, text is the easiest to
manipulate

General guidelines:
Be concise
Use appropriate fonts
Consider different type styles
Be consistent
Make the text readable
Use restraint
What is Text?
Words and symbols in any form, spoken or written,
are the most common means of communication.
Texts in the form of words, sentences and paragraphs
is used to communicate thoughts, ideas and facts in
nearly every aspect of our lives.
What is Text?
Multimedia products depends on text for many things:
 to explain how the application work.

 to guide the user in navigating through the application.

 deliver the information for which the application was designed.

What is Text?
• Based on creating letters, numbers and special characters.
• Text elements can be categories into:
– Alphabet characters : A – Z
– Numbers : 0 – 9
– Special characters : Punctuation [. , ; ‘ …] , Sign or Symbols [* & ^ % $

£ ! /\ ~ # @ .…]
– Also known Character Sets
– May also include special icon or drawing symbols, mathematical

symbols, Greek Letter etc.

Importance of Text in a Multimedia
Presentation
Factors affecting legibility of text:
– Size.

• The size of the text

– Background and foreground color.

• The color in which the text is written in / on.

– Style.

• Also known as typeface and font

– Leading.
• refers to the amount of added space between lines of type.
Understanding Fonts and
Typefaces
• A ‘font’ is a collection of characters of a particular size and
style belonging to a particular typeface family.
• Usually vary by type sizes and styles.
• The sizes are measured in points
• This includes the letter set, the number set, and all of the
special character and diacritical marks you get by pressing the
shift, option, or command/control keys.
Arial Fonts
Understanding Fonts and
Typefaces
• A ‘typeface’ is a family of graphic characters that usually
includes many type sizes and styles.
• A typeface contains a series of fonts. For instance, Arial, Arial
Black Arial Narrow and Arial Unicode MS are actually 4 fonts
under the same family.

Arial Typefaces Family

Understanding Fonts and
Typefaces
The study of fonts and typefaces includes the following:

 Font styles - boldface, italic, underline, outline

 Font sizes - point, kerning, leading

 Cases – uppercase, lowercase, intercap

 Serif versus Sans Serif

Font Styles
 The technology of font effects in bringing
viewer’s attention to content:
 Case: UPPER and lower cased letter
 Bold, Italic, Underline, superscript or subscript

Embossed or Shadow
 Colours
b
Strikethrough
Font Sizes
Font size is measured in points.
Character metrics are the general measurements
applied to individual characters.
Cases
A capitalized letter is referred to as 'uppercase', while
a small letter is referred to as 'lowercase.'
Placing an uppercase letter in the middle of a word is
referred to as intercap.
 Serif Versus Sans Serif
Serif San Serif
Serif is the little decoration at the end of Sans serif fonts do not have a serif at the
a letter stroke. end of a letter stroke.
Serif fonts are used for body text. These fonts are used for headlines and
bold statements.

Examples of Serif fonts Examples of San Serif

fonts

Times New Roman Century Gothic

Bookman Arial
Rockwell Light Comic Sans MS
Courier New Impact
Century Tahoma
Using Text Elements in a
Multimedia Presentation
The text elements used in multimedia are:
Menus for navigation.
Interactive buttons.
Fields for reading.
HTML documents.
Symbols and icons.
Menus for Navigation
A user navigates through content using a menu.
A simple menu consists of a text list of topics.
Interactive Buttons
A button is a clickable object that executes a

command when activated.

Users can create their own buttons from bitmaps and

graphics.
Fields for Reading
Reading a hard copy is easier and faster than reading

from the computer screen.

A document can be printed in one of two orientations

- portrait or landscape.
HTML Documents
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language.
It is the standard document format used for Web
pages.
HTML documents are marked using tags.
Some of the commonly used tags are:
 The <B> tag for making text bold faced.
 The <OL> tag for creating an ordered list.
 The <IMG> tag for inserting images.
Symbols and Icons
• Symbols are concentrated text in the form of stand-alone

graphic constructs.

• They are used to convey meaningful messages.

• Symbols used to convey human emotions are called

emoticons.

• Icons are symbolic representations of objects and processes.

Creating Attractive Texts
Applications that are used to enhance texts and
images include:
Word Processor
Adobe Photoshop

TypeStyler

COOL 3D

HotTEXT

TypeCaster
Text Editing and Word Processing
Tools
 processor =A word processor is usually the first software
tool computer users learn.
From letters, invoices, and storyboards to project content,
your word processor may also be your most often used
tool, as you design and build a multimedia project.
 The better your eye boarding or typing skills, the easier
and more efficient your multimedia day-to-day life will
be.

Text Editor
A text editor= is program that allows you to open, view,
and edit plain text files.
 Unlike word processors, text editors do not add
formatting to text, instead focusing on editing functions
for plain text.
Text editors are used by a wide variety of people, for a
wide variety of purposes.
 Software programmers and web developers use text
editors to write and edit in programming and markup
languages.
OCR Software
 OCR (Optical Character Recognition) also called Optical Character Reader
is a system that provides a full alphanumeric recognition of printed or
handwritten characters at electronic speed by simply scanning the form.

 More recently, the term Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) has been
used to describe the process of interpreting image data, in particular
alphanumeric text.

 Often you will have printed matter and other text to incorporate into your
project, but no electronic text file.
 With OCR software, a flatbed scanner, and your computer, you can save
many hours of re-keying printed words, and get the job done faster and more
accurately than a roomful of typists.
Home work
There is Review Questions in the book give me the right
answer for that question ?
which start
 .What is the importance of software in multimedia?