Editing content pages

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There are many TYPES OF CONTENT on the web site.  Each type of content has a different purpose, and different ways of administering that content.

However, most content contains a body which can be edited as described here.

Let's start with the ending - Commands to finish your work:

  • You MUST click Submit  or (depending on the version of Drupal used for the site) at the bottom of the web page for your changes to be saved.
  • Click Delete  to permanently delete a web page
  • Select "Publishing Options" at the bottom of the window and uncheck "Published" to keep the page from being displayed on the web site, but it won't be deleted permanently.  Go back later and Publish the page so it will re-appear.
  • Select "Publishing Options" and check "Create new revision" to create a new version of the page while keeping the old version so you can go back to it later if needed.

ENTER THE TEXT DIRECTLY INTO THE WEB SITE:

The best approach to developing content is to do it right on the web site.  To do this, login as an Editor.  Navigate to the page that you want to edit.  At the top of the page, you will see several tabs, usually View and Edit.  Click on Edit to enter editing mode.

The page will be presented as a series of "fields" that you can edit.  The place where you will spend most of your time is the "body."  The body can be edited using an editor that is similar to Microsoft Word.  You will see a "tooolbar" at the top of the edit window:

COPY AND PASTE TEXT:

When you copy and paste text, the editor tries to include formatting information from where you copied the text.  If you are copying from another web page, use the Paste button:

  • Copy the text to the Windows clipboard by highlighting the text and choosing Edit > Copy, or type Ctrl-C.
  • Position the cursor where you want to paste the text.
  • In the editor toolbar, click Paste.
  • The Paste window will pop up.  Follow the directions in the window to paste the text.

Often, you do not want the formatting information, but just want the plain text.  If so, use the Paste as Plain Text function:

  • Copy the text to the Windows clipboard by highlighting the text and choosing Edit > Copy, or type Ctrl-C.
  • Position the cursor where you want to paste the text as plain text.
  • In the editor toolbar, click Paste as plain text
  • The Paste as plain text window will pop up.  Follow the directions in the window to paste the text as plain text.

MIGRATING FROM WORD: 

Although it is often desired that content be created on a computer and then migrated to the web site, this approach will lead to some funny little things that must be fixed to make the content appear as you would desire.  See the discussion below on "differences" for things to avoid or minimize in Word documents to maximize their conversion to HTML, the language of the web.

If you have a document that was created in Word and you want to migrate it to a page on the web site, open the document in Word and select the part of the document that you want to migrate.  If you want to migrate all of a document, click somewhere in the document and type Control-A.  Click Control-C to Copy the content to the clipboard.  Open the web page where you want to insert the text, and then click on the Paste From Word icon in the toolbar.  Check "Remove Styles definitions" to keep our web site style consistent.  Paste the content into the window that opens, click OK, and the text will be pasted to the web page.

INPUT FORMAT:

Another control that influences how the web pages appear is the "Input Format" which is a hot-spot at the bottom of the editing window.  Click it to expand it.  Different formats impose different amounts of control over formatting.  The default is "Rich text" which assures reasonable formatting.  The least control is imposed by "scriptful" which is the best filter for text that has been pasted from Word.

PREVIEWING YOUR WORK:

As you are editing, you may want to see how your work will appear on the web site.  You can preview by clicking   NOTE that your work is not saved until you click submit or save, as noted above.

DIFFERENCES:

There are some fundamental differences between content on a web site and content in a document on a computer that is printed as a way to distribute that content.  The differences have to do with the "language" that is used to construct web pages, and that the target of a printed document is a fixed size piece of paper, while computer browsers vary in screen size and user settings.  These are most apparent when content has been developed in Microsoft Word or similar tools and you want to move that content to the web site.

  • Tabs and spaces:  The concept of a "tab" doesn't exist as such on a web page.  A tab can be implemented in several ways.  Most commonly, it is converted to a series of spaces.  This often leads to inconsistent formatting, so it is not recommended.  You can use Indents to format, though, and they provide similar results.
  • Fonts and styles of fonts: The web site style sheet controls the selection of fonts unless you override them.  We recommend that you don't override them so that we have a consistent "look and feel" to the web site.  If you use Input Formats of scriptful or Full HTML, and you copy and paste content from Word, you will override the fonts unless you check "Remove styles definitions."
  • Tables: A web page table provides lots of control on spacing of text on a web page.  Think of a table as a grid of cells where you can merge adjacent cells either horizontally or vertically to manage how spacing is done.

CORRECTING WORD FORMATTING:

You may find that your pasted Word document causes some problems with the standard site formatting of web pages.  This is usually because Word includes some extra formatting information which overrides the standard formatting.  To remove this extra formatting, you must edit the Body at its "source" level.  While this is easy to do, it may look daunting when you first see what is needed.

In the editor Toolbar, click   You will now see the html "source" that defines how the page should be formatted.  If you see text at the top of the page that looks like:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12">

then you have some of the extra formatting that should be removed.  Look further down the source listing, and you will soon find the text that is the first part of your document.  In the case of this document, it is

<p>There are many TYPES OF CONTENT on the web site.&nbsp; Each type of content has a different purpose, and different ways of administering that content.</p>
<p>However, most content contains a body which can be edited as described here.</p>

Remove everything BEFORE the <p> and you will be good to go!  If you need help with this, just ask.