Styling text

You can apply formatting (styling attributes) to an entire block of text or to individual characters within a text block. To format one or more characters within a text block, select that text first by dragging over the text with the Text tool. To format all the characters in the text object, you can either select the text with the Text tool or select the text object with one of the Selection tools first. You can also select more than one text object at a time with the selection tools to apply the same formatting to all those blocks of text.

The Text category in the Properties panel

The Text category expanded to show more options

• Font Select the font from the Font gallery.

Choosing a font from the Font gallery.
Note that you can replace the fonts in your Favorites section by dragging in new fonts from the Typefaces section

Tip: If you want to change all the text blocks in your document that have the same font to a different font, first select one text block with the Selection tool and use the Select by feature to select all the other blocks. Then you can change the font in the Appearance in the Property panel and all the selected text blocks will change.

• Size   Choose the text size from the Type Size drop-down list or click on the field to enter a custom size. By default, text size is specified in points (1/72 of an inch), but you can change this with the Type Units option in the Units and Grids panel of the Options dialog box
• Color and stroke   Each character in a block of text is considered a separate object and can have its own fill and stroke settings. You can change these in the Appearance category of the Properties panel, just as you would any other object.

Each character in a block of text can have its own fill and stroke attributes.

• Alignment  While all of the above formatting can apply to individual characters, the horizontal alignment formatting always applies to an entire block of text. For ordinary text and text on a path, you can select from among the Left, Center, and Right alignment buttons. For area text, you can also select the Justify or Justify All options. (Justify All is also called "force justified.")

Horizontal alignment: left, center, right, justified, and force justified

• Leading  Leading is the vertical amount of space between lines in a text block. By default, Expression Design applies an automatic amount of leading between lines. If you want to override this value, select from the Leading drop-down list in the Text category. Leading is set as a percentage of font size. If you want a value other than the ones offered in the drop-down list, click the Leading value and type in your own percentage value. Note that while you can change the leading of selected characters, Expression Design only applies the leading value of the last character in each line of text to the entire line.

Leading set to Auto (left), 80% (middle), and 120% (right)

• Tracking  Tracking controls the horizontal space between individual characters. You can change the tracking of one or more characters with the Tracking drop-down list in the Text category. A positive tracking value adds space to the right of each selected character. A negative value removes space, making the spacing tighter. If you want to adjust the spacing between two adjacent characters (also called "kerning"), select only the first character of the pair and apply tracking to it. If you want a tracking value other than the ones offered in the drop-down list, double-click the Tracking value to select it, and then type your own.

Tracking set to 100% (top), -5% (middle), and 5% (bottom)

• Horizontal scaling  You can change how wide each character appears by adjusting the Horizontal Scale slider. The space between the characters is also scaled.

Setting horizontal scaling to 100% (top), 80% (middle), and 120% (bottom)

• Baseline Offset  You can move one or more characters up or down from their normal baseline by adjusting the Baseline Offset slider.

Here, every other character has a baseline shift of 8 points.

• Super/Subscript  Click the Superscript or Subscript button to change the baseline shift and size of the selected text to preset superscript and subscript values. To remove this formatting, select the text, and then click the Normal button.

Superscript and subscript characters within a block of text