iChat Icon   Changing the way the chat looks

You can change the appearance of the balloons in chat windows or turn off the balloons. You can also change the fonts used in a chat.

To view a chat as text, choose View > Show As Text.
To change the balloon color and font used in your messages, choose iChat > Preferences, then click Messages. Your changes affect the format of your messages on your screen and on your recipient's screens, unless they have chosen to reformat incoming messages.
To override the font and color settings selected by other people and display all incoming messages using your preferred settings, select Reformat Incoming Messages.

You can also customize your chat windows by selecting an image to show in the background. Choose View > Set Chat Background, then select an image file. To remove the background image, choose View > Clear Background. The background image is visible on your screen only; it's not seen by those you're chatting with.