North Dakota State University

The rich text editor has selection menus for Block style and Text style. These menus apply styles to paragraphs and text, respectively.

Paragraphs are a block of text separated by pressing the enter key (paragraph break).  In the example that follows, there are two paragraphs.  Styles applied to a paragraph can not be applied to just one or two words.

This is paragraph one.  It is not very long.

This is paragraph two.  It is not very long either.

Text are spans of text within a paragraph, or text that is separated by pressing shift-enter (line break).  In the example that follows, there are two lines of text but only one paragraph.  The bolded text is "text" within this paragraph.  Styles applied to text can be applied to just one or two words.

This is one paragraph.
This is the same paragraph, with a line break in the middle.

• What are styles
• Apply style to paragraph
• Apply style to text
• Apply style to a list

To apply a style to a paragraph,

1. Select (highlight) all or part of the paragraph.  This may include simply putting the cursor in the paragraph
2. From the Block style drop-down menu, select the desired style
3. Observe the style and make changes if necessary

The movie, below, demonstrates this process.

Styles should be used for their named purpose only. This means "statement" should be used for statements, not to change the size of arbitrary text, and that "tip" should be used for tips, not to change the alignment or background of text.

Styles available as of Fall 08

For www.ndsu.edu sites, the following appearances apply for the various style choices.

Note example - availability and appearance of these styles may vary by site

Tip example - use these styles like Tobasco sauce: sparingly

Warning example - excessive use of these styles may be removed at the request of University Relations

Statement - statement example

Example movie

To apply a style to text, the process is very similar to applying to a paragraph.

1. Select (highlight) the text that should be styled
2. From the Text style drop-down menu, select the desired style
3. Observe the style and make changes if necessary

Styles should be used for their named purpose only.  This means "caption" should be used for image captions, not to change the size of arbitrary text, and that "key" should be used for keystrokes only, not to put a border around text.

Styles available as of Fall 08

The styles available for www.ndsu.edu sites

• Caption - Caption example (note that there is a subtle change in text size, color and font family)

• Key - Key example (note that key is limited in length to approximately 8 characters. Exceeding this limit will cut off the text displayed. This is intentional and will not be changed)

To apply a style to text, the process is very similar to applying to a paragraph.

1. Select (highlight) the list items from the list
   
2. From the Block style drop-down menu, choose the desired style
3. Observe the result and make changes if necessary

Styles should be used for their named purpose only. This means "check list" should be used for lists that would be used by visitors as a list of items to review, tasks to complete, etc.

Styles available as of Fall 2011

For www.ndsu.edu sites, list styles include

check-list (choose bullet list)

• Task 1
• Task 2
• Task 3

link-list (useful for providing extra spacing for lists of links)

• Link 1
• Link 2
• Link 3

alpha-list (choose numbered list)

1. Item 1
2. Item 2
3. Item 3