It’s time for another easy tip. Gmalonzo hinted at this one in a comment to our Tips and Tricks post on dressing up the reviews on pages that you liked. For those of you that blog on your SU favorites page, I hope that you have noticed the line above the posting text box that reads “Normal | Visual Editor.” If you click on “Visual Editor”, it brings up a set of icons that you can use to add a variety of formatting to your blog entry. As Gmalonzo said, since this feature also appears when you edit one of your reviews, you can also use it to clean up and dress up your reviews after the fact.

When you click on the “Visual Editor” link, it brings up an icon menu with formatting features similar to that of a word processor. This menu looks like the following graphic. I have added a number for each function and will use those numbers to explain each function in the area below the graphic.

1. Hide Visual Editor - This small triangle hides and exposes the visual editor controls. If you click it with the editor icons showing, it hides them, leaving just the triangle. Clicking the triangle again will expose the controls.
2. Source – When only the formatted text is displayed, clicking on source will expose the code that controls the formatting. Clicking on it when the code is exposed will hide the code. Note that the functionality of the visual editor is not available when viewing the code window.
3. Bold – Select the text that you want to format and click on this control to make the text bold. Can be combined with 4, 5 and 6.
4. Italics - Select the text that you want to format and click on this control to italicize the text. Can be Combined with 3, 5, and 6.
5. Underline - Select the text that you want to format and click on this control to underline the text. This option should be used sparingly, if at all, since underlined text looks very much like a link and might be confusing. Can be combined with 3, 4, and 6.
6. Strikethrough - Select the text that you want to format and click on this control to show a strikethrough line through the text. Can be combined with 3, 4, and 5.
7. Numbered List - Select all of the text in lines that you want to be a bulleted list and click on this control to add numbers and an indent.
8. Bulleted List - Select all of the text in lines that you want to be a bulleted list and click on this control to add bullets and an indent.
9. Font – Click on the triangle at the right of this box to drop down a list of fonts to use for text that you have highlighted. With the list showing, click on a font to select it.
10. Size - Click on the triangle at the right of this box to drop down a list of font sizes to use for text that you have highlighted. With the list showing, click on a size to select it.
11. Font Color – Highlight some text and then click on this box to change the color that is used to display it. Don’t choose the same color as the background of your page, or the highlighted text will effectively disappear.
12. Background Color – Highlight some or all of the text in your post, then click on this icon to change the color of the background against which the text is displayed. This can be used to avoid the disappearing font issue noted in the item above.

The visual editor gives you a lot of control over the appearance of your blog posts and reviews. You should probably avoid going totally crazy, since most people are not all that thrilled about over-the-top formatting. It is probably better to go for subdued rather than crazy.