Time for action — setting the site title
- Pull down the Design Site menu from the Page Manager toolbar and select Design site. A new window opens, displaying the Microsoft Office Live Small Business Web Design Tool web page with Site Designer as the active tab.
- Click on the Header button on the ribbon. The Customize Header dialog opens.
- Replace the text Welcome to my site in the gray box in the Site Title section with your site's title. I'm going to set it as The Office Live Guide for the site that I'm building—this book's companion site.
- Pull down the select options for the font face just above the title. You'll see a choice of seven fonts: Arial, Courier New, Georgia, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.
Why only seven? After all, Microsoft Word seems to have a hundred. The reason is that in the Web's architecture, the task of displaying a given font is delegated to your browser. Not every browser can display every font. If a browser can't display a font that you've specified, it displays one that it thinks is right. Such a substitution might distort your web page. But these seven fonts are, more or less, the least common denominator; most browsers support them. Therefore, the chances of your web pages being distorted are quite slim if you choose one of these seven.
So which of these seven should you choose? Follow this two step process:
- If one of the fonts in the list looks like the font on your letterhead or the sign above your office, choose that one.
- Not even close? Choose either Georgia or Verdana.
Note
Most fonts, such as Arial or Times New Roman, came to computer displays from the world of print. They were designed to look good on paper. Making a font look good on paper is relatively easy because text is printed on paper in very high resolution. On a monitor, however, pixels of resolution are at a premium. Besides, the resolution can vary from monitor to monitor. Therefore, text will look better onscreen if you use fonts that are designed specifically for monitors rather than using fonts that are grandfathered from the print world. Georgia and Verdana are designed specifically for monitors and so they're the ideal candidates for the text on your web pages.
Set the font you've chosen. I've set it to Georgia.
- Next, pull down the adjacent select options for the font size. You'll see a choice of seven font sizes. They're conveniently numbered from 1 to 7. Size 1 is the smallest and size 7 is the largest. For some inexplicable reason, people often choose a size that's either too big or too small. I recommend size 5 for the title. That's just about right for most websites built with Office Live Small Business.
One thing you've got to remember, though, is that: Thou shalt use Georgia or Verdana in size 5 for your site's ti tle is not the eleventh commandment. I've suggested these setti ngs because, in my experience, they are just about right for most websites built with Offi ce Live Small Business. They make the header appear proporti onate to the text on the web pages. But, they may not be right for your site if its ti tle or slogan is either too long or too short. Come back and experiment with the font face or size of the header elements if your pages look out-of-whack aft er you fi nish building your website.
Set the font size you've chosen. I've set it to 5.
- Although you can choose a color for the title, let's skip it for now. The choice of color depends on other layout options as well. Therefore, we'll address it when we set the design and layout options in Chapter 3.
Tip
Although you can make the title bold, italicize it, or underline it, you'd do well by avoiding the temptation. Depending on a combination of factors such as the font face, font size, and resolution of a visitor's monitor, these special effects can make the text quite difficult to read. The last thing you want to do is to inadvertently make the title of your site unreadable.
- Your Customize Header dialog should now look something like this:
- Keep the window open; you might as well set a slogan for your website while you're there.
What just happened?
You just took the first baby steps towards building your website! Agreed, all you did was set the site title—not exactly the kind of stuff that you'd write home about, but it's a fine start nevertheless.
Your site's title and slogan, which you'll set in the following section, play an important role in helping people find your site from search engines.