Editor Quick Overview

The Edit My Site Online editor is very similar to the word processing program you use (only simpler, which is a good thing!). The editor is WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) which means just what it says-when you're editing you'll see exactly what your site visitor will see.

Save it or Lose it

You must click on the button to save your changes.

If you use the back or forward buttons on your browser, you will lose your editing changes.

If you make changes you don't want to keep, simply press the . This will cancel any changes (it won't delete what you previously saved).

Tool Bar

There are no pull-down menus, just the icons and menu you see here:


If you can't remember what an icon means (and we all have those days), just let your mouse pause over an icon, and a little "tool tip" will appear and tell you what the button does.

If you need more help, click on the red book with the "?" on it on the top right (in the picture above it's got a big orange circle around it-in real life it doesn't).

Getting text into the editor

While you can, of course, type from scratch in our editor, if you've already written your text, it's easy to bring it in without retyping it.

Select the text, either in your word processor, or from an existing web page. Then choose Edit/Copy (or press Control-C).

Switch windows to our editor. Click inside the editor for the cursor is flashing. Press Control-V to paste.

From a word processor

When you paste from Word, our editor will retain as much of your formatting as it can. This includes fonts, sizes, colors, indents, bullets, colors, but not pictures. The reason pictures aren't copied is because to use a picture on the web it first has to be saved into either GIF or JPG format (you can get Word to do this for you by saving your Word .doc file as a "web page" using File/Save As Web Page).

If there's a picture in your document, you'll see a blank box appear in our editor, where the picture used to be. It's best to delete this blank box before you save the page. If you leave it in, all you'll see on the web page is a blank space.

From a web page

Select the text you want on the web page. Choose Edit/Copy or press Control-C. Switch to the editor. Click inside the editor for the cursor is flashing. Press Control-V to paste.

Pictures are copied into the editor-because they already exist on the web. What the editor is really doing is pointing to the picture that's already on the web, so you won't see that picture in your image space.
Remember, it's against the law to use someone else's text or pictures on your site without first getting their permission.

Working with pictures

To insert a picture:

1)

Click the cursor where you want the picture to go.

2)

Click on the Insert Image icon at the top of the editor

3)

Click "Upload a new image" at the bottom of window

4)

This screen will tell you how much image space you have remaining, and allow you to browse your hard disk for an image you want to upload. To browse, click on the 'browse' button. Only GIF and JPG images are supported.

5)

Locate and select the file and click open.

Note: If you want to verify the image you've chosen, click on "Preview Image" to see a quick preview of the image before you upload. If this is the correct image, click on "Upload this Image." If not, click on "Cancel."

6)

7. Click on the Next button to upload the image.

Important: Depending on your connection to the Internet and the size of the image you're uploading, the process may take a few minutes. Do not interrupt the process or click the upload button more than once.

7)

Once your picture is uploaded click "Return to Insert Image dialog"

8)

Select the image in the list on right side of the window. When you do, you'll see a preview of that image.

9)

Write a brief image description in the ALT field. It's important to include a description of your image for two reasons: 1) If your site visitors connection is slow, they'll see the description before they see the image. 2) If your site visitor is sight-impaired, their software can read the description to them.

10)

Choose your alignment. If you don't select an alignment, your image will be Top-aligned (the bottom of the picture will be on top of the your line of text) but text will not wrap around it.

If you want your text to wrap around the image, choose Left (the picture will be on the left and text will wrap around the right) or Right (your picture will be on the right while your text wraps around it on the left).

It's important to choose your alignment now, because once your image is on the page you can only change the alignment by removing the picture, then inserting it again, or editing the HTML (HTML edit mode is only available to certain users).

11)

Select Insert Image and the image will now show up in your Edit My Site Online page.

To move an image

You can use drag-and-drop to move a picture within your content. Hold down the mouse on the picture, then drag it to a new location.

You can also select an image and choose Cut (or press Control-X), then place your cursor where you want the picture moved to and choose Paste (or press Control-V)

To delete an image from the page

Simply select the image on the page and choose Cut or press the Delete key. This removes the image from the page, but not from your image space. To remove an image from your image space, go to My Images and click on Delete under the image you want to delete.

Fonts

The only fonts that appear on the list are those fonts which almost all web visitors have on their computer: Georgia (the easiest-to-read serif font), Verdana (the most readable sans-serif font), Courier (a "typewriter" like font), Arial (the standard Windows sans serif font), Times New Roman (the standard Windows serif font), and Helvetica (the standard Mac sans serif font).

We recommend you always choose either Georgia or Verdana because these are the easiest fonts to read on-screen (really, they are). If you don't have them, you can download them for free.

When you choose either Georgia or Verdana, we automatically insert HTML code that tells the browser which fonts to choose in case it doesn't have either of these, so these are safe choices for all pages.

Undo

If you make a typing or editing mistake, use the "Undo" button (or press Control-Z) to undo your error.

Working with HTML

If your account allows you to work directly with HTML, you will see two small tabs on the bottom left of the editor.

Normal: This is the normal "what you see is what you get" view of the page. It shows you how your content will look on your web site.

HTML: HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the language behind all web pages. If you are an advanced user, then you may know how to edit HTML directly. If you do, you can use this view to see and edit the HTML code the editor creates so you can add your own HTML.

Once you've added your own HTML, it's always a good idea to switch back to Normal view to preview your page and make sure the HTML you edited is working as you expected. If it doesn't look right in normal view, it won't look right on the web page, either.

If your account doesn't allow you to edit HTML and you want to, talk to your account owner. If they want you to edit the HTML, they can change the editor settings so you can access it.

 

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