Hi Cara,
Thanks for the instructions on choosing color in TextEdit. I played
around with a few of the settings before trying to answer Dan, and was
able to get colors selected, but not easily. Of course, I was also
trying to press the "Choose Color" button <smile>. I always feel that
TextEdit has much more power than we're using, and would love to find
a guide to some of its lesser used features. Have you tried
formatting text using styles or saving your selections of font, line
spacing, alignment, and formatting selections, etc. as customized
styles that you can switch to? You can obviously change default font
sizes in the user preferences (Command-comma), but you can also
predefine style settings with fonts and formatting and switch to these
(buttons need VO-H to hear their functions). Again, this isn't
something that I've played with much, except to create a style for
someone who needed certain large font families, but it seems like it
has a lot of formatting potential.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 14, 2008, at 7:46 AM, Cara Quinn wrote:
Esther, Dan, et al;
There is a completely accessible way to work with color in
TextEdit. Actually there are two and possibly more.
When you first select text whose color you'd like to change, and
then go to the format menu followed by font, you'll find the option
to show colors.
Once this window comes up, you'll be presented with a very large
number of options, not only in colors, but in the way colors are
displayed and worked with. In other words, in the tool bar, you'll
see choices for displaying colors as a pallet, sliders, crayons,
etc. The two most accessible options I've found are sliders or
crayons. With these, it's possible for a VO user to choose specific
and precise colors.
In the crayon view, the window will appear as if you're seeing a
box of crayons so to speak. VO will see each crayon as a radio
button and its color name will be read. So, by clicking on the
appropriate crayon with VO space or whatever method you like, you
can set the color of the selected text. One important thing to
note, that I've found, is this; once you choose your color, DO NOT
CLICK THE PICK COLOR BUTTON! This for me at least, has caused VO to
read strangely at times. In order to choose the color, simply click
close in the window after you choose your color, and all will be
well. :)
Now, the other way I've found which is easy, to choose color, is
with the color sliders. There are a few options here that I won't
go into, and for this discussion, they can be safely ignored.
Essentially, you'll be presented with a much less complex window
than the crayons window, which will contain three sliders and three
edit fields. Each edit field corresponds to one of the three
sliders. I.E. the slider is set to a percentage, and the edit
field next to it shows the exact color value.
So the sliders are for red, green, and blue. By setting these you
can change the color of the selected text in your document. You can
either interact with the sliders and move them with VO, or simply
type specific values in the edit fields and the sliders will move
accordingly. Also, your color choice will show up in the color well
next to the 'choose color' button with it's appropriate text name.
As before, rather than clicking the 'choose color' button, simply
close the window and your text should show up as the color you chose.
HOpe this helps and please do have a wonderful day!…
Smiles,
Cara :)
---
View my Online Portfolio at:
http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn
