Today Ian Stewart made a WordPress Theme Team announcement that concluded with:
I love the idea of meeting the ‘expectations and hopes’ of everyone here by delivering to you the best in WordPress themes. Pretty, painless, perfect-fit ones that just plain work.
Well that’s good news. What would be exciting news is that WordPress.com has installed an editor that allows us to change fonts and background colors by clicking buttons. Just saying that I believe these are among the very reasonable expectations and hopes that WordPress.com bloggers have.
Reasonable expectations and hopes
It’s very hard to fathom why these features aren’t available to us here at wordpress.com when they could be if the WordPress team chose to include the full features of the TinyMCE editor in the software.
It’s very difficult for members volunteering to answer questions on the WordPress.com support forums to explain why there is such a glaring difference between those who have free hosted blogspot (Blogger) blogs and who can do these things free of charge by clicking buttons, but we can’t do them at WordPress.com without paying for a CSS editing upgrade that must be renewed annually.
Existing options for WordPress.com bloggers
Currently WordPress.com bloggers have the following options for changing fonts.
- We have always been able to switch to the HTML editor and do what’s described in the support documentation font size and color entry and that amounts to using HTML on a post by post and page by page basis.
- We can use TypeKit fonts. Although some people have had trouble using TypeKit fonts not all have. Here’s the link to a brief typekit fonts for wordpress.com tutorial that we can consult and more instructions can be found as well.
- The third way to change font style, size and color is to purchase an annually renewable CSS upgrade from wordpress.com and change fonts throughout the entire blog by means of CSS editing. This upgrade is only recommended to those who have experience with CSS editing as there is no Staff support for it, and precious little Volunteer support. Those who do purchase the upgrade are expected to possess at least moderate understanding of HTML and CSS because they must be prepared to work independently when editing CSS stylesheets for their themes.
- The fourth way we can change font size, style and color on WordPress.com blogs is by changing themes.
Notes and resource links for WordPress.com bloggers
Change font in header image
If you have a chosen a WordPress.com theme with the customizable header option, you can change your customizable header on your WordPress.com at any time, and use a free font or one you purchase of your own choice to place your blog title and tagline on the image. Then you can choose to “hide text” when you upload your custom header.
Additional resources > Background color, Color customisable themes, Formatting text pt. 5: color, size, and font
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Sandra Lee
April 15, 2010
Amen! I really miss this feature of Blogger, although I love all the other tremendously wonderful aspects of WordPress.
I tried a free trial of Typekit this morning and so far I find it mind-boggling to figure out although looking at the WordPress support document gave me a few clues to follow. In short, it’s not working even in a Safari browser where it should not my usual Firefox which is not a version that will support Typekit. But what’s the point of using fonts that will only show up in some browsers? Not sure I should even bother with this.
I’m still wavering between Neutra and Vigilance. I like the simplicity of Neutra and the drop down menus, but I don’t like the font types, the gray font color, nor the bright Dodger Blue. I like many features of Vigilance but not the HUGE header title, big post titles, nor the wimpy blog description. It’s all about fine-tuning the fonts and color in either theme and WordPress.com doesn’t give us that flexibility…so far…I will look at your link about how I might be able to use the customizable Vigilance header putting my own font text for title and description on the picture, in the event I decide to go back to Vigilance.
Sorry to bind out, but this post goes to the heart of my frustration!
timethief
April 15, 2010
@Sandra Lee
Many bloggers are disbelieving and annoyed when they hear that there is no ability to click and change background colors and font colors, font families and sizes.
Setting that aside I just visited your blog and I like the font change you made in the blog title. The other one did not suit. I wouldn’t change a thing about your blog theme now – I love it! Stay with Neutra. :)
Sandra Lee
April 15, 2010
TT: I like your new look! I found the new Inuit theme too. I like it better than Neutra. Am giving it a whirl. Thanks for your positive feedback on the Neutra theme. It’s certainly a good option if I decide in the end that Inuit doesn’t work. I could never get the correct Typekit serif font to appear although some change occurred to the font (it was still sans serif) and the Typekit badge was certainly there! Typekit is not for the technologically challenged like me.:-)
AA
April 15, 2010
I’d be happy if they’d just add the button for creating Tables. The editor is actually stuck in the past.
Rogue|Hero
April 15, 2010
Hey timethief!
The new Inuit Types theme looks good! The text is very legible! I also found it on the WordPress.com blog, along with the announcement for the Theme Team. I do hope that they’ll come up with more options that allow us more flexibility in crafting our blog posts and the overall design of our blog. I just purchased a CSS Upgrade days ago and so far, everything’s going smooth. The only thing that bothers me is that after a year, I’ll have to renew the upgrade. I sure wish upgrades like these were free; but anyway, as rationalized by WP, they charge these services to keep the free features free.
Welcome back, by the way! And happy Blog Reader Appreciation Day! Thanks for your visits to my blog site!
Cheers!
onemillionplease
April 16, 2010
Ok…you got me. Love your site. I’m a first time blogger and some what computer savy. But I need instruction from day 1. Your tutorials were really hard to explore to find what to do from day 1. After I set up a blog How do I improve it? Looks, links, get responses, etc. Do you have any progressive tutorials that take you through 1 step at a time from the very beginning? Also, do you need a url to make improvements or can you improve your free blog from wordpress? I know it’s off topic but I don’t know how else to communicate to you. Thanks muches.
Jack
Minisite Design
April 16, 2010
I love wordpress, thanks for useful posting, keep writing ;)
minisite design
April 16, 2010
thanks for useful posting, keep writing.
Blog Designs
April 16, 2010
Very good informative article, “this upgrade is only recommended to those who have experience with CSS editing” I know CSS, I studied it before some years.
timethief
April 17, 2010
Thanks for the positive feedback.
dreamsburnred
April 16, 2010
Hopefully this will mean better and more themes!
Nice to see them dedicating a team to it.
timethief
April 17, 2010
I’m with you on that. I’m looking forward to seeing what the teamwork on theme work produces. :)
Orissa Property
April 19, 2010
The text is very legible! I also found it on the WordPress.com blog, along with the announcement for the Theme Team. I do hope that they’ll come up with more options that allow us more flexibility in crafting our blog posts and the overall design of our blog.
timethief
April 19, 2010
@Orissa Property
Thanks for the feedback. I do appreciate it. Unfortunately your wordpress.com username appears to be a keyword. Moreover, it’s not linked to your wordpress.com blog. If you are wondering why I deleted the link then please click this link to my commenting policy and read 5. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/commenting/ I’m strictly a white hat SEO blogger and I remove the links of those who attempt to game search engines.
thesteppingstones
April 29, 2010
I have been working with the theme “Motion”. I am starting to think that the theme itself may be preventing me from changing the background and text colors for specific pages… Either that or I don’t know what I am doing…lol. This is what I wound up with trying to have the body of the page color, to be white and the text black. < BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000"> I wasn’t sure if the end of the page required a I am rapidly thinking it isn’t the theme Motion, but myself. Please help. http://thesteppingstones.wordpress.com you can just call me step for short
timethief
April 29, 2010
@thestepptingstones
I have the Motion theme on my test blog and there is no option to change background colors or font colors in the Theme Options. The only option for this theme are these:
Motion Theme Options
Category Navigation
___ Hide category links in top navigation
Home Link
___ Hide “Home” link in page navigation
If you are editing CSS I cannot help you with that. devblog is the volunteer who helps with CSS editing. This is his post > http://csswiz.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/if-you-have-the-wp-com-css-upgrade/