Page Master Guide

 

Page Masters Guide to Creating DUMC Web Pages:

This guide is intended to provide all of our Page Masters’ with practical guidance in how to write, edit and maintain web pages.  It contains information on the user of Microsoft Word as a basis for web pages, how the web page editor differs from Word, style of writing, formats to use, etc.

Web Page Concepts for DUMC:

Generally speaking, your web page should use the minimum number of words possible (use lots of bullets, indents, etc.). Web pages are intended to VERY QUICKLY, and VISUALLY communicate information. Don’t try to write a novel (exception might be the Full History of DUMC). The shorter, the better!

Important To Know:

The web page editor IS NOTHING LIKE Microsoft Word! 

The more skilled at Word you are, the more you will dislike the web page editor. 

If you use Word to create your web page don’t use tabs, indents, tables, font colors, bullets, numbering, etc.  They get eliminated or cause problems when you paste you Word document into the web page editor.

Creating a web page from scratch:

Generally, try not to do this.

Consider copying an existing web page and modifying it to make it the page you want.  You can use text from a Word document in your modified web page – simply copy and paste selectively.

Fonts, Colors, Text Sizes, etc.:

Web Pages use primarily the following fonts, styles, and colors:

Heading 3 – Arial, 18 point, blue text color – These are the headers left most on the page

Heading 4 – Arial, 16 point, fire brick text color – These are the sub-headers one indentation to the right of the Heading 3 text

Normal – Arial, 14 point, automatic text color – This is used for essentially ALL other text.  Any other fonts, sizes, colors, styles, etc. should be extremely limited in their use (consistency in presentation is desired throughout the web site).  Especially try to avoid bold text (use italics instead) limit other colors to green (try to never use red), text size 14 is ok to use but limit it, in tables use whatever works best.

If you get you text from Word, and past it in the web page editor, it is best to highlight it all and make the font Normal, Arial, 14 point, automatic text color to start with and then go back an fix Heading 3’s and 4’s as needed.

The Web Page Editor:

First, know that it is somewhat quirky to use.  Unexpected things tend to happen, like you think you cursor is one place and it is actually another, paragraphs may shift from where you want them, etc.  It’s not that there aren’t reasons for this, it’s just that it will require experience on your part (gained through trial and error) to figure out what it is doing and why.

Look for the        buttons in the top left of the web page editor.  It is best to always use the “full page editor”, the left most of these two buttons.  Also, it may be helpful to turn on the “show blocks” feature, the right most of these two buttons.  This will give you the best chance of creating your web page the way you want it to be.

Clicking the “full page editor” in full screen edit mode will send you back to the “small screen mode” where you can save your page.  Frequent save’s are recommended along with viewing the page so you can see how your page is looking and correct anything you don’t like.

Practice using the      indent buttons will serve you well.

Tables in the Web Page Editor:

Tables are tricky.  Your best bet is to create a table using the table button in the web page editor. 

You need to have a real good idea of the number of rows and columns you will need since it is a slow process to add many extra rows or columns.  Also, there is no “copy” function for rows or columns.

When you create a table you will most likely want to select FIRST ROW under headers since this will give you the ability for site users to sort the table (see how the table in FIND EVERYTHING works).

I would always enter a CAPTION which gives your table a title.

Imbed Photos In Your Web Page:

The Photo button is easy to use, but you have to make sure you have a photo in the GALLERY first and copy its URL so you can enter it in the URL spot in the IMAGE PROPERTIES dropdown you get when you click on the Photo button.

To put a photo in the GALLERY or link to one that is already there, you need to be in the CHOOSE PAGES section of the editor.  Look for the "go to the gallery manager" at the bottom of that page.