And the last category I want you to look at is the general category. Here, I want you to make sure you have checked use CSS instead of HTML tags. But I want to show you what happens if you uncheck this. Now, when in the world would you ever use HTML tags instead of CSS? Everybody on the web now thinks we should use CSS. And that is really true. But if you ever inherit an old website, you know what I am talking about. Client comes to you, I had a web designer, things did not work out, can you help me? And you are taking over somebody else work or website that was created in previous versions of Dreamweaver and did not use CSS/. Then if you uncheck this preference and click okay, when you come down here to the properties dialogue, you will have some options you would not otherwise have. Now, notice I have still got the magnifying glass checked. Let us make sure we have the select tool checked and I am just going to click anywhere on the background here to get the regular properties panel. This is the default options and properties. Remember, any element you have selected, you will see the properties for that. So, you can select a table, you can select an image, you get the properties for that. If you just click in the background of the page, you get the default properties.

And here is where you will really see difference in that little preference check between CSS and HTML. Now, if I choose size in the properties panel, I get the plus 137 minus 137 options for the front tag. This is an old way of changing the size of text in HTML. And the default there was three which is about the equivalent of times 12. That means, if you just type into a page and preview it in a browser it is going to look like times 12 and that is the equivalent of font size three, does not make much sense. I warned you, some of this was not intuitive. But if you got a history in HTML you know what I am talking about. So, just know that times 12 is about the equivalent of font size three and if you wanted to change that size, you could use a higher or a lower number or you could choose plus or minus to increase the size of your font plus or minus a number.

Now, we do not think about that much for using CSS these days. But if you inherit an old website and you are trying to make a quick change, turning off the preference for CSS so that you are using HTML will get you access to this size options. And if you are used to work in that way and you have just jumped in to the newer Dreamweaver, you maybe frustrated by the way it looks when that is checked.

So, let me put that back, you go to edit preferences and remember we are in the general category and this is where you will find use CSS instead of HTML. So, I am going to check that back and for the rest of this training, I want you to have use CSS instead of HTML checked. Click okay and now, notice that when I come down here, my options are very different and these are much more familiar to you if you are used to work with font sizes. Now, you have font size 12, font size 14. so times 12 is going to look like you would expect times 12 to look rather than font size three which, yes, the old HTML most of us do not mess too much.

So again, you are only going to turn that off if you are working on an old site you want to make a quick fix and then after wards go back to your client and insist that they hire you to update the site.