Web Support
Adobe Contribute (handouts and video tutorials)
Contribute is an inexpensive and very easy to learn program
that allows you to make most of the edits necessary to keep your web
site correct
and
current. To inquire about a copy, set up a training or to get a connection key please contact the LMC web administrator
1. The Basics
Contribute allows you to
connect to the server which hosts your web site and edit your site directly
on the server. Once you have saved (published) your changes
they are immediately available for the public to view.
To edit your site open Contribute.
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The
first time you do this you will need to create a connection you will
be sent a connection key (an attached file in an email) and a password by
the site administrator. Double click to open the file
and type in the password.
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Now
navigate to the web page you want to edit as you would on a web site
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When
you have the page in front of you click edit page
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The
files for the page will be temporarily downloaded on to your computer
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The
appearance of the page may change slightly as it displays the structure
of the page as well as its content.
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Run
the mouse over the page. You will find some parts of it have
a no entry sign. These parts are affected by a template
which has been applied to several pages and you can not edit
them.
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You
can edit anything in the "Main Body" part
of the page
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Edit
page as described below
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Once
you have finished you can either:
i. Publish – this
will send your new page up to the server and it will be immediately
available for
viewing
ii. Cancel – To
cancel any changes you have made
iii. Save for later -
if you do this no one else will be able to work on the page until
you have either
published or cancelled the page
- Contribute has an excellent help
menu if you need to know more about anything go to help and chose
from the Quick start guide, tutorial or general
help
2. Editing text
This is the same as editing in a simple
word processor. Click
on the text you want to edit and:
- Highlight and press delete to remove text
- Type to add text
- Highlight text and click on appropriate button to embolden,
use italics, justify, add bullets etc
- Click on the text menu to choose from Headline, subhead
or text
3. Inserting Links
i. Write
the text that is to be the link (Something descriptive and not just 'click here')
ii. Highlight
the text that will become a link
iii. Click
on the link button
iv. Chose
either to link to an (a) existing page, an (b) email address or a
(c) web link:
(a) Existing page
Click
on browse and search for your page
(b) Email address
Type
in full email address
(c) Web link
Type
in the url (web address) that you want and then click on browse to
check it is correct or
Click
on browse and search the Internet for your page
You can place an invisible marker, called a section
anchor, on your page to mark a specific topic or place.
You can then create links to the anchor, which take web site
visitors to the specified position on the page with the anchor.
In
your draft, place the insertion point at the beginning of the section
where you want the page to open when a web site visitor clicks
the link to the anchor.
Select Insert > Section
Anchor.
The
Section Anchor dialog box appears
Enter
a name for your anchor.
The
name cannot begin with a number and cannot contain any spaces. You
cannot have two anchors with the same name on a web page.
Click OK
Highlight
the text for the link
Click
on the link button at the top of the page, choose Browse to web page
In
the Insert Link dialog box, click the Advanced button
to expand the dialog box, if it is not already expanded.
Select
a named anchor from the pop-up menu
Click OK.
- If you are using a PDF document make sure it is a sensible file
size
- Highlight text and click on the link button. Choose File on my computer
- Navigate to the file and click on OK
- The file will automatically be uploaded to the documents folder on
the server
The software has been set so that
it is impossible to have an image larger than 164 kb in size. Most of the images
on your site are less than 6kb in size. This is what you should
be aiming for when creating images with an absolute maximum of 30kb
for all images on a page. Image sizes are one of the biggest
causes of web sites that are slow to download. To prepare an image
for the web you may need image editing software.
Remember to add alternative text (Alt tags) to all
your images to help visually impaired visitors and visitors with
very old computers access your web site.
You can insert images that are stored on your computer
(or floppy disk etc) or reuse an image that is already on the site.
- Click on the image button
- Navigate to your image and click select
- Add alternative text that will help visitors who can not see
the picture
- Double click on the image to alter settings
- Browse to change the image (and
then reset size)
- Click on Reset size if you have
altered the image in anyway
- Add horizontal and/or vertical
padding to create space around
the image
- Choose alignment to make the
text wrap round the image
- Add a number to create a border
of that width round the image
- Change the alternative text if
desired
- Click on apply to see results
before saving
- The image will automatically be added to the images folder on
the server
- As in Word. Navigate to the
table.
- Click in table cells to edit content
- Click in table cell and then go to table on the top menu to add/delete/merge/split table cells.
- Click in individual cell and then go to table > cell
properties to
change background color etc
- Click in the table and then go to table > table
properties to
change background color etc for whole table
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Click
where you want to insert the table
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Click
on the table button
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Choose
the number of rows and columns
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Choose
which cells are going to contain headers – important
for accessibility
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If
you decide to make the table a specific width do this as a
percentage of the page rather than a specific number of pixels – accessibility
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Choose
whether to add padding and borders
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Add
content – text or images
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Edit
your table as above
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