You’ll find all these controls in a toolbar right above the window where you type your chat messages.

Working from left to right, first up is the Font pull-down menu. This is the place to pick your font! And just to the right is the Size pull-down menu, for you to designate the size you prefer.

Next come the Style buttons, friends. Add some razzmatazz. B for Bold, I for Italics, and U for Underline.

And finally, to change the color of your text, click the palette icon (the "T" with paint blobs next to it). This opens a window with many colors to choose from.

If you’ve already written some text and now you want to change its appearance, click at one end of what you’ve written and drag the cursor to the other end. This highlights the text. Once it’s highlighted, go ahead and make your style and color changes.

At this point you’re probably looking at that last button, the smiley face wearing shades! Yep, that’s the emoticon menu. Click the face to reveal all kinds of other expressions you can insert into your messages, just by clicking.