During the discussion about the removal of various direct formatting entries from writer's context menu, Luke mentioned that it would be good for us to rename 'Character' to 'Font' (bug 81132 comment 32), so i'm filling this bug related to that. What other apps use :- IBM Symphony: Layout > Properties > Text Properties... Apple iWork: Font (sidebar) Calligra: Character (sidebar) Word 2003: Format > Font... Word 2013: Font (ribbon UI) WordPerfect: Format > Font... WPS/Kingsoft: Format > Font... Abiword: Format > Font...
Just a guess: isn't font the whole set of characters, while character can be used to point to setting the attributes one or more character?
Cor, In the past, the name 'Character' was used for 2 reasons: 1) 'Font' already existed as a dedicated menu 2) It directed users to the Character->Font(on 1st use) Since we have removed 1), it makes sense to rename it to 'Font' for the reasons Jay Philips listed. The only issue I could see with this change is that if another submenu is selected, it will no longer default to the 'Font' submenu. However, the Font submenu tab will still be visible and all the other submenus could also be considered a type of "Font" setting such as font color and positioning. Overall, I think Font is a much better name. It is more recognizable and what people coming from other word processors will be looking for.
So the issue was discussed at the design meeting today and we decided to stick with Character. Looking at why MS Word uses 'Font' is because its dialog only contains font settings in it, while LO has settings for background color, borders, etc. If the choice were between Character and Text, like how IBM Symphony has it, I would likely go for text, as I assume the word text is used more often when we consider the characters on a page.
Well i was going to propose changing it to Text at the next design meeting, but we use Text in the textbox context menu. :D