Using the Rich Text Editor

The rich text editor allows you to edit your text in a manner that is very similar to Word. You can Bold, Italicize, Underline, strikethrough your text, change the alignment, create a bulleted or numbered list, an indented list, undo, and redo your text.

Click on any of the following headings to view the instructions:

Adding a Link
Adding an Image
Editing an Image
Anchors
Creating a Table
Formatting Your Text

bodytext editor
Figure 7: Body Text Editor

Adding a Link

  • To add a link, type in text that you want to create a link for and highlight it. Click on chainlink icon chainlink icon. A window will pop up and ask you for the ‘Link URL’ (see image below). If we are linking to an outside page, enter the whole URL including http://
  • If you’re linking to a page within your site, just type in what comes after the .com (eg. /about)
  • When linking to a new site, you can choose ‘Open in new window’ in the ‘Target’ menu. This will keep visitors on your site.
  • If you’re linking to a page on your own site, you can choose to ‘Open in this window/frame’.
  • The ‘Title’ is optional. In some browsers, when visitors mouseover the link, it will show the title at the bottom of the browser.
  • Click ‘insert‘.
  • The link will be created, but you must save your changes in order to be able to click on the link.

link window
Figure 8: Link Window

Adding an Image

  • To add an image into your text, click on the tree icon tree and the ‘Insert/edit image’ window will popup. If the image you want has a URL, enter that into the Image URL field including http://
  • If you want to upload an image from your computer, click on the ‘upload icon’ uploadbeside the Image URL field.
  • ‘Browse’ your computer files, choose a gif or jpg file and click ‘Upload file’. The image will appear in the directory. Click ‘add’ to add it into your page. You should add a description so it is easier for search engines to pick up your site. A title is optional. Click ‘Insert’, and the image will appear on your page.
  • You can resize the image by clicking on it and dragging the edges.

NOTE: In order for your site to load smoothly for visitors, it is best to keep images under 50kb. Please see the Photo Compression tutorial for instructions on how to compress images.

Editing an Image

  • You can also edit the image by clicking on the tree icon. Click the ‘Appearance tab’. The window with the text and tree image in the Appearance window shows a preview of what your text is going to look like (see image below).
  • You can adjust the alignment of the image. The dimensions of the image can be adjusted also. You can enter a number in one size field and then if you press your tab key, the second field automatically changes it so it constrains the proportions of the image.
  • You can add ‘Vertical or Horizontal space’ around your image. (tip: A figure of around 10 will give you a good amount of space around your image.) You can set a border if you’d like by entering a figure in the Border field. The preview will always show you how your adjustments will look.
  • Click ‘update’ to make changes.

image edit
Figure 9: Edit Image Window

Anchors

  • Creating anchors will allow you to link to a section in the same page as the link.
    Type in the word/text that you want to be an anchor, click before the word and then click on the ‘Anchor’ icon anchor.
  • A small window will pop up and ask for a name. Enter a name that can be easily identified and then click Insert.
  • Now go to the text that you would like to link to the anchor. Highlight the text and click the ‘Insert/edit link’ icon. The window opens and you’ll notice that there’s a pulldown menu for Anchors. Choose the anchor that you just created and then click ‘Insert’.

Creating a Table

  • You can create tables within your text, similar to the way you would in Word.
  • Click on the ‘insert/edit table’ icon (see image below) and a window will pop up. Enter the number of columns and rows you would like your table to have.
  • ‘Cellpadding’ refers to the border around the text.
  • ‘Cellspacing’ is the space between the cells.
  • You can also set the alignment of the text in the cells, as well as the border size.
  • The width and height of the table can be specified, or it can be left blank and it will expand as you enter content. Click ‘insert’ when you are done, and you can begin entering content into your table.
  • You can edit the text in the tables by dragging your cursor over the text you would like to edit and then choose one of the icons (bold, italics etc).
  • You can also insert rows and columns into your table, choose a couple cells and merge them using the buttons indicated in the image below as Table tools.

table
Figure 10: Creating Tables

Formatting Your Text

You can format your text using the ‘Format’ pulldown menu format pulldown. Highlight the text you want to format and then choose the formatting style from the menu.

Some other useful buttons:


Cut cut

Copy copy

Paste paste

Remove Formatting remove formatting

Special Characters special characters

Paste from Word paste from word Please use this to paste all text from Word. Paste the text into the popup window that appears when you click on the icon and click ‘Insert’.

Indent indent icon

Outdent outdent

Horizontal Ruler horizontal ruler This creates a line across your page that can serve as a page break.