Having Problems

I am at the last stage of making the animation but does anyone know how to make it into a useable file that can be made into a .MPEG of a .mmv file... does rendering do that? If you have an answer please comment to help me out, another problem, i cant add color to the text in the animation is there a certain type of text to put on or do i have to sculpt my own? Please help. if i figure it out it will be in my videos as soon as my computer at home is fixed... is there a trick to rendering or do you just wait it out because whenever i render the computer looks as though its frozen. With my impatient mind i don't want to wait for a render that will take forever and might not even be the right thing. I appreciate your feedback, thanks.