Using the Rich Text Editor

The Rich Text Editor in Message Center allows you to personalize your emails messages by changing the font size and color, adding emoticons, inserting HTML links, creating bullet point lists, adding colored background, and other options.

In order to use the text editor, you will need to turn it on. To do so, click on Options and select Messages. Place a check in the box next to Use rich text formatting to change colors and fonts when composing a message.

Although the editor works with both Firefox and Internet Explorer, NetZero recommends you use IE to get the most of the features.

Text Editing Tools

The toolbar looks like this:

(This is the toolbar for Internet Explorer. Firefox users may see a different layout).

The toolbar is laid out according to similar tool groups such as Cut, Copy, Paste, Font size and color, etc.

1.
Cut, Copy, and Paste
Use these tools to move content around within your message, or to include some text from other sources (i.e. a different email, webpage, etc).

When you try to cut, copy, or paste text for the first time, you may see a message from your browser asking for permission to access your clipboard. Click Allow Access to continue (you'll only need to do this once).

Note: Members using Firefox will not see the Cut, Copy, and Paste buttons on the toolbar and will need to use their browser. There are three ways to Cut, Copy, and Paste text in Firefox:

• Using the Mouse. Highlight the text you want to move, right-click on it, and select Cut or Copy. To paste, move the cursor to where you want to insert the content, right-click, then select Paste.
• Using the browser menu. Highlight the text you want to move, click on Edit on the browser menu, then select Cut or Copy. To paste, move the cursor where you want to insert the content, then click on Edit on the browser menu, and select Paste.
• Using the keyboard: Highlight the text you want to move then press the Ctrl and X keys at the same time to cut, or Ctrl and C to copy. To paste, move the cursor where you want to insert the content then press the Ctrl and V keys at the same time.

2.
Font Style, Size, Color, and Background
Use these options to change the look of your font by choosing a different font style (from the Font family list), size, color and background. Click on the down arrows next to each option to see your choices.

3.
Bold, Italicize, and Underline
These tools make your text bold, italicized, underlined, or any combination.

4.
Text alignment
These options let you choose to align your text to the left (the default alignment), center, or to the right.

5.
Bullet List and Indentation
Clicking on these choices will create a bullet or numbered list, and will either add or remove indentation to your text.

6.
Emoticons, Links, Line Insert, and Find/Replace
These icons let you add emoticons (such as smileys or other images), add Web page links into your text, or insert a horizontal line as a separator.

To add a link within your text, highlight the content you want to be linked and click on the chain link icon. Type (or paste) the URL you want as your link into the Link URL field. Select whether you want to link to open in a new window or not, and add a title (if you like). When finished, click Insert.

The Find/Replace tool (binocular icon) lets you search within your email for a specific word or phrase, and lets you automatically replace it with something different.

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