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Multimedia Systems

notes screen). The text in the multimedia is used to communicate information to the user. Proper use
of text and words in multimedia presentation will help the content developer to communicate
the idea and message to the user.
Text is simply another name for words. Text provides information to the reader. It is everywhere;
and a part of our daily lives. We see it in newspapers, books, signs, on websites, on TV, on
computer screens and many more places. Text in multimedia is generally combined with other
types of media such as video, graphics, photography, animation and sounds. Text is the most
widely used and flexible means of presenting information on screen and conveying ideas. For
a public system, where the eyesight of its users will vary considerably, a clear and reasonably
large font should be used. Users will also be put off by the display of large amounts of text and
will find it hard to scan. To present tourist information about a hotel, for example, information
should be presented concisely under clear separate headings such as location, services available,
prices, contact details, etc.

2.1 fonts and faces

A font is a collection of characters of a single size and style belonging to a particular typeface
family. Typical font styles are boldface and italic. Other style attributes, such as underlining,
outlining and strikeout of characters, may be added by your computer software.

Bold Outline
Italic Strikeout
Underline Text Superscript
Shadow Text Subscript

A typeface is family of graphic characters that usually includes many types of sizes and styles.

The size of a text is usually measured in points. One point is approximately 1/72 of an inch i.e.,
0.0138. The size of a font does not exactly describe the height or width of its characters. This is
because the x-height (the height of lower case character x) of two fonts may differ.
Typefaces of fonts can be described in many ways, but the most common characterization of a
typeface is serif and sans serif. The serif is the little decoration at the end of a letter stroke. Times,
Times New Roman, Bookman are some fonts which come under serif category. Arial, Optima,
Verdana are some examples of sans serif font. The following fonts show a few categories of serif
and sans serif fonts.

F F

(serif font) (sans serif font)

Serif fonts are generally used for body of the text for better readability whereas
sans serif fonts are generally used for headings.

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