Text Information and

MIL Media

What’s In

The history of human civilization is very well tied with the history of printed
text. Early human civilizations attest to the importance of writing and printing.

Two of the most important information revolutions in the history of

communication and media are writing and printing of text. Because of the invention
of the phonetic alphabet and the printing system, the human civilization is able to
store and pass on knowledge. This is why in the early years of your life, you are
taught how to write and hot to share your thoughts in written form.

This lesson will discuss what is text and how this media can be used effectively
to present our ideas and express what we feel. The topics include different font types,
and design principles and elements of text.

What’s New

Activity 1: Mapping
Instructions: Roam around your house and look for the things in the list below.
Check (✓) the () in the right if you think the object can be used to write, print or
display texts. You may add your own list.
Checklist
✓ Example) Television Notebook Poster
Radio Paper Smartphone
Book Magazine Tarpaulin
Newspaper Journal Computer
Wall Pen Wood

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 What is It

TEXT INFORMATION AND MEDIA

What is text?

In academic terms, a text is anything that conveys a set of meanings to the

person who examines it. You might have thought that texts were limited to written
materials, such as books, magazines, newspapers, and ‘zines (an informal term for
magazine that refers especially to fanzines and webzines). Those items are indeed
texts—but so are movies, paintings, television shows, songs, political cartoons,
online materials, advertisements, maps, works of art, and even rooms full of people.

According to Rose (2015), a text is any “human-readable sequence of

characters or even glyphs which are associated with ancient writing culture. Text,
when used in information technology, is distinct from “noncharacter encoded data,
such as graphics images in the form of bitmaps and program code.”

The Textual medium offers an easier and more flexible use in terms of content
production, which is why it is ideal for learning. Text is one of the elements of
multimedia products that can then be combined with several other elements to
present information and create an impression or impact (Parekh, 2006).

Types of Texts “Categorization of Text” (Parekh, 2006)

Plaintext – Consisting of fixed sized characters having essentially the same
type of appearance.
Formatted text – appearance can be changed using font parameters
Hypertext – serve to link different electronic documents and enable users to
jump from one to the other in a nonlinear way.

The Anatomy of Fonts

Before we delve into the world of font types and font styles, it can be helpful
to understand a few things about the anatomy of type. All fonts sit on an invisible
plane called a baseline—think of it as the blue lines on your loose leaf paper—and
have an invisible center line called a mean line.

The cap height is the top plane of a capital letter, like the straight line on the
top of a capital T. The cross bar is the line in the center that crosses a capital H or
A. Some letters, like a lowercase h or b have what’s called an ascender, a line that
crosses above the mean line. Others have descenders, which—you guessed it!—drop

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below the baseline. Classic descenders are the little loop on a lowercase g or the lower
half of a y.

Source: https://99designs-blog.imgix.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/typography-
e1505354780413-700x420.png?auto=format&q=60&fit=max&w=930

All letterforms have these basic parts, but their thickness (known as “weight”),
shape and height all influence what “family” or type of font they fall into.

FIVE (5) TYPES OF FONTS

1. Serif fonts

Serif fonts are the most classic, original fonts. They are named for the
little feet at the top and bottom of the letterforms. Serifs date back to the
Romans who flared their brushstrokes out at the top and bottom, creating
what we now know as serifs. Serif typefaces came into vogue in the 15th
century and held court for three hundred years. Even within this one
designation, there are tons of smaller classifications (Old Style, Classical, Neo-
Classical, Transitional, to name a few). While a casual observer might lump
them all together, a type geek can explain that subtle differences between the
weight, ascender heights, and shape of the actual serif give you clues to what
era it was created in.

For the non-type geeks, here’s what you need to know: serif fonts are
ubiquitous in our day to day life in nearly every book we read or document we
open (hey there, Times New Roman). They are go-tos for logos and print copy
and are generally considered to be the most trusted (or conservative) fonts on
the planet. Our eyes love them for everything from short titles to long pages of
text.

2. Slab Serif fonts

Slab serifs are the fonts with the most impressive, large serifs. They are
the louder cousins of the classic, quiet serifs, that rose to prominence in the
billboards, posters, and pamphlets of the 19th century, designed to yell their
message from a good distance. Later they evolved into some more genteel

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 forms like the ever-popular Clarendon, that could work for longer paragraphs
of text.

Slabs almost always bring a vintage vibe to a design and they have a
rugged athleticism that can’t be denied. The classic forms work incredibly well
for any brand relating to the outdoors and the more refined modern versions
always feel a little artsy—probably because almost every typewriter font is a
slab serif.

3. Sans Serif fonts

Sans serifs are fonts that lack the little serifed feet. They started
popping up in the mid-19th century but truly hit the big time in what’s known
as the “Modern” era, in the twenties and thirties. They were considered new
and flashy, like shorter skirts and the Charleston dance craze. (Fun fact: you
will still see sans serifs with the word “grotesque” in their name owing to
people thinking they were crass and only good for advertising.) In the mid-
century German designers ran away with the footless forms and created some
of the fonts that remain popular and iconic to this day, like Futura and
Helvetica.

Sans serifs are still considered the most economical, efficient, clean and
modern choice. They are also readable at a large range of sizes and their less-
detailed shapes have lent themselves incredibly well to digital screens. Sans
serifs are bold and a little bossy—while they work well for long paragraphs
text they have always shone in larger uses like headlines and logos.

4. Script fonts
Script fonts are those that mimic cursive handwriting. They are
separated into two categories, reminiscent of a party invitation: formal and
casual. Formal scripts, as the name implies, are the very fanciest scripts.
They evoke the incredible handwriting of masters of the 17th and 18th
century. They are immediately recognizable for their over the top curls and
flourishes that extend from the serif, known as swashes. These are to be
handled with care. Using them for extended amounts of copy can lead to your
design resembling the Declaration of Independence. That said—they will
never go out of style for wedding invitations, romance book covers, and any
design that wants to feel more historical.

5. Handwritten fonts
Different from formal or casual scripts, handwritten fonts were difficult
to find even ten years ago. Handwritten fonts often lack the structure and
definition of the letterforms in a traditional script, instead mimicking the loop
and flow of natural handwriting. They might also be technically sans serif and
resemble your dad’s all-capital letters in a birthday card. The sheer range
makes handwritten fonts difficult to describe but the recent explosion of
available forms is exciting to watch.

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Design Principles and Elements of Text.
1. Emphasis – Use different size, weight, color, contrast and orientation to
present texts with greater value.

Image: “Yay! Party!” by Jay Michael A. Calipusan

2. Appropriateness – Using the right font, content and tone of presentation

based on the target audience or event.

Image: “Congrats!” by Jay Michael A. Calipusan

3. Space – Use space to create focus and strategically make other texts stand-
out.

Image: “Largest!” by Jay Michael A. Calipusan

4. Alignment –Use text alignment to set symmetry, formality or free style.

Image: “Felipenas!” by Jay Michael A. Calipusan

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 5. Consistency –Use at least 2 or 3 colors, font styles and design styles for the
whole composition or content.

Image: “Free hugs!” by Jay Michael A. Calipusan

Formatted Text

Formatted text is text that is displayed in a special, specified style. In

computer applications, formatting data may be associated with text data to create
formatted text. How formatted text is created and displayed is dependent on the
operating system and application software used on the computer.

Text formatting data may be qualitative (e.g., font family), or quantitative (e.g.,
font size, or color). It may also indicate a style of emphasis (e.g., boldface, or italics),
or a style of notation (e.g., strikethrough, or superscript).
Purpose

The purpose of formatted text is to enhance the presentation of information.

For example, in the previous paragraph, the italicized words are each followed by
examples. At a glance, the reader can ascertain that there are four special words in
the paragraph. The goal is to help the reader to obtain, understand, and retain the
information.

Copying Formatted Text

When you copy formatted text to your clipboard, formatting information may
or may not be copied with the text data.

For example, if you select text in one application that is boldface, you can copy
it to your clipboard by pressing Ctrl+C. The formatting data is also copied to the
clipboard, saying "this text is bold." When you paste it (Ctrl+V) into a program that
also supports formatted text, that formatting data is included, and the pasted text
should appear bold.

However, if you paste the text into an application that does not support bold
text, such as Microsoft Notepad, the pasted text is unformatted. Notepad ignores the
formatting information, because it doesn't understand it. However, the plain text is
pasted correctly.

The same is true if you paste the formatted text into a text field, such as the
address bar in your web browser. Formatting data is stripped, but the plain text is
pasted.
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Unformatted Text

Unformatted text is any text that is not associated with any formatting
information. It is plain text, containing only printable characters, white space, and
line breaks. It corresponds to a set of characters in the American Standard Code
for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a standard table of seven-bit designations
for digital representation of uppercase and lowercase Roman letters, numbers and
special control characters in teletype, computer and word processor systems. When
you type a particular letter using a word processor, the letter actually has an
equivalent set of characters when translated into a computer program.

Source: https://swh-826d.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ascii_table2.jpg

Hypertext

The principle of a hypertext makes use of linking a text to another text “in
such a way that the user can navigate non-sequentially form one document to the
other for cross-references.”

The World Wide Web (WWW) combines computer networking (the Internet) and
Hypertext MarkUp Language (HTML) into an easy to use system by which people can
access information around the world from a desktop computer. Hypertext is the
medium used to transmit the information in a non-linear fashion via computer
by clicking on a "link" using a mouse.

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 We commonly think of links as the underlined text on graphical Web browsers,
such as Netscape and Internet Explore, which, when we click it, takes us to a new
document or other type of information. Before there was a graphical Web browser,
computer users could access linked material on the Internet by using a program
such as LYNX, a non-graphical Web browser.

These days, texts are generated using word processing technology. A word
processor is any computer software used to “produce, edit, and format mainly text-
based documents (such as) writing letters, memos, reports, creating letterheads,
producing labels, etc.” Back in the day, typewriters were popular. Learning to type
required mastery of the QWERTY key that is also similar to keyboards attached to
personal computers and even messaging applications. In a typewriter, you hit a key
to imprint the letters straight onto a paper. Unlike the computers, typewriters offered
set of formatting when it comes to typography, which refers to the general character
or appearance of printed matter.

Newer technologies such as a microphone and specialist “speech-to-text”

software also enable text generation. This means that the sound of your voice will be
recognized by a computer software or application and associate it with characters in
its databank.

Texts are kept in different file formats. A file format refers to the digital
document or information that is stored in a computer as a sequence of bits and bytes.
You would normally recognize the file format by looking at the extension at the file
name.

Creating text files and using a word processor is one of the most common
tasks on a computer. Below are the most common file extensions used with text files
and documents.

• .doc and .docx - Microsoft Word file

• .odt - OpenOffice Writer document file
• .pdf - PDF file (Portable Document Format)
• .rtf - Rich Text Format
• .tex - A LaTeX document file
• .txt - Plain text file
• .wpd - WordPerfect document

Example of Text Application Software

1. Word processing software - It is focused on line-by-line creation of
text documents.
2. Desktop publishing- It is a software that allows complex pages of text and
graphics to be laid out for publications such as newspapers, magazines,
brochures and books.

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Standard features of Word Processing
All word processing applications allow you to: enter and edit text, save,
print, cut/copy/paste, check your spelling.

Cut, copy, and paste

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Cut and copy work in a similar way. Highlighting a piece of text, right-clicking
and selecting copy/cut will store the text in memory. The difference is that copy
leaves the highlighted text behind whereas cut removes it. To insert the copied/cut
text into a different area of the document, a different document, or an entirely
different application altogether, right-click and select paste. The use of cut, copy,
and paste is not necessarily limited to text.

Formatting text makes a document easier to read. You can:

• change font type and size
• change the alignment of text (left, centre, right or justified)
• bold text
• underline text
• italicise text
• create bulleted or numbered lists

Other features that may be expected include find and replace, which replaces
one word with another, and the ability to importgraphics, eg from a clip art library.
Headers and footers and page numbering are also very useful.

Text information is considered the main mode of communication from which

other media modalities are based from. You have a better understanding of the other
modalities if you first appreciate the text and be more acquainted to the effective and
efficient use of it for communicative purpose.

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