User's Guide
What's in Your Newsletter - Editing Articles
Overview: A guide to adding articles and using the Article Entry screen

Steps for Creating and Managing Articles

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1 - Create A New Article

When adding a new article to your newsletter, you can either contribute your own by composing it online or uploading it from your computer, or you can search our library of pre-written articles. In all cases, new articles are added to your newsletter through the Article Entry screen. This same screen is used when content is being uploaded from your computer, when an existing article is being edited, and when a pre-written article is being selected. This screen holds all of the information pertaining to the article and how it will be used by the page template.

To begin the process of adding a new article:

Start at the Menu page. Then, click on the Articles button and you'll see this:

Article Overview
Here are the articles which have been submitted to the Newsletter. Only Approved () articles will be included on the Web and in email broadcasts. To create a new article, click Add New below. Once you have completed an issue/edition of your newsletter, create a new one through the [NEW ISSUE] link on the Main Menu.

ISSUE:


No articles are available for this issue.
Click ADD NEW below to enter an article.

 

Click on the Add New button to go to the Add New Content screen.  There are two high-level options on this page - Contribute Your Own or Search Content Libraries

Click the Continue button at the bottom of the Contribute Your Own box.

You are now on the Article Entry screen.

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2 - Enter Basic Article Information

ISSUE: In which issue should this article appear?
Date:
Topic Section:

Title:

Sub-Title:

Web Address: Link this article to the following Web address:

Author Name:

Issue: By default this will be set to the current issue. If you change this setting, you can change the issue to which this article is assigned. Select [ALL ISSUES] to allow this article to float from issue to issue. This is useful for setting aside certain content that will appear in every issue of your newsletter, like special instructions, banners, subscription information, contact information, or general information about your business.

Date: Today's date is the default date. This is the date the article is available for viewing. The date can be set to appear under the article title and/or can be used to determine the order of articles in your newsletter.

Topic Section: Select the Topic Area from the drop down box for the article. Pick the topic area where the article fits best. The system uses Topics to group multiple articles into special sections. If you have not entered Topics, you can do it later. Go to the Topic manager from the Main Menu if you wish to add or remove topics.

Title: Enter the name of the article. It will display in bold face above the article synopsis or body and in the Table of Contents.

Sub-Title: Enter a sub-title of the article or leave it blank if not applicable. The sub-title will appear below the article title in Italics.

Web Address: Associating a Web Address (or URL) with an article allows it to be easily linked to a page on your Web site or any other location on the Web. By default, this address will appear as a clickable link below the title and sub-title. Through the Layout Editor, you can configure your newsletter so that this Web Address becomes the destination of a click on the article title or picture.

Author Name: Enter the name of the author of the article.  You may also include the name of the publication in which the article first appeared. If specified, the author name appears after the word 'By' below the title and sub-title of the article.

 

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3 - Enter a Short Description/Synopsis and an Article Body

Short Description/Synopsis:

The short description/synopsis provides a brief summary of the article to give readers a quick introduction to the rest of the article text. It can be the first paragraph of the article or it can be a description or summary of the article. This is your chance to grab the reader's attention. By default, the synopsis appears on the cover page of the newsletter. If the Article Body is not blank, a [FULL STORY] hyperlink appears after the synopsis which then leads to the full text of the article. If no synopsis text is specified and the article format is Plain Text (see below), then approximately 200 characters from the Article Body will be automatically extracted and used as the synopsis.

Either plain text or HTML can be placed in the Synopsis and Article Body boxes. You can also upload a file directly using the UPLOAD button.

 

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4 - Placing Content into the Synopsis and Article Body

There are several ways to place information into the Synopsis and Article Body boxes: You can type the text directly into the box, copy and paste text from another open document, or upload a file from your computer.

Typing Text Online

Type the text directly into the appropriate box. To use a larger online HTML editor (if you are editing HTML), click the Use Editor button. Complete articles can be composed using this method, however, it is important to save your work often to prevent your session from 'timing out'. We do not recommend that you compose articles of any significant length online because your session could time out. A session timeout occurs when the software has not heard anything from the user for a period of 15 minutes or more. If a session is idle for this period of time, you will be automatically logged out. This is done for security and to free up resources for active users.

 

Copying and Pasting Text

Copy (CTRL+C) text from another document and paste (CTRL+V) it into the box. The document can be a text file, an email, a word processor document, a Web page, or anything with words on it.

 

Upload a File

A formatted HTML file or a Microsoft Word document can be uploaded directly from your computer. The steps for doing this are outlined below:

Article Body: Place the complete contents of your article in this box. You can copy (CTRL+C) text from another document and paste it here (CTRL+V), upload a file from your computer, or enter the text directly in this box. Click Use Editor to edit your article with an online HTML editor.


Use the radio buttons below to select the format you are using for the article above.
Plain Text HTML (Formatted Text) 

  1. Click the Upload... button. 

  2. Click Browse to find your article on your computer.

  3. Find your file and select it.

  4. Click Upload File (or enter the URL if the article is online)

  5. You will be returned to the Article Entry screen with the file contents appearing in the text box. NOTE: Microsoft Word documents will be automatically converted into HTML.

Setting the Article Format:
An article can be stored in either plain text or HTML (formatted text) format. Articles in plain text format are easy to construct but do not include the font changes and other types of formatting that can be embedded within an HTML document. HTML formatted articles are very flexible. They can contain any valid HTML, links to images, and can include the HTML generated by the HTML editor of your choice.

5 - Including Pictures

There are two ways to include pictures with an article. A single picture can be assigned and stored with the article or, using HTML, one or more pictures can be embedded within the article synopsis or body.

Assigning a Picture to the Article
The easiest way to include pictures with your newsletter is to assign a picture to an article using the Add Image button on the Article Entry screen. The default layout template is configured to handle these pictures (and optional captions) automatically. For example, the article pictures will appear in reduced size on the cover page and at a larger size when reading the complete article.

The steps to assigning a picture are:

Picture: (GIF or JPEG)

Caption for the picture:

  1. Click the Add Image button.

  2. Select BROWSE to find your picture on your computer.

  3. Find your file and select it (or enter the URL if the picture is online).

  4. Select UPLOAD FILE.

  5. If you change your mind, you can select CHANGE/EDIT IMAGE or CLEAR IMAGE to delete it.

  6. Caption for the Picture: Enter a description or caption for the picture, if needed. On the cover page, this caption will display when the mouse is over the picture. On the article page, the text will appear directly below the image.

Embedding Multiple Pictures using HTML

The pictures that are embedded within an HTML formatted article can be stored within your account or they can exist on another Web site. In either case they will appear the same. If you are familiar with HTML, you can do this using the IMG tag. For example, <IMG SRC="http://www.website.com/imagename.gif">. However, you do not need to understand HTML to insert a picture.

 

An easy way to include pictures within an article is to add these pictures to the article when it is being composed in Microsoft Word. Then, you can upload this Word document directly from your computer using the Upload button. When the document is uploaded, it is automatically converted into HTML and all of the embedded pictures are converted into a Web-ready format.

 

Alternatively, you can use the online HTML editor to insert pictures that have been uploaded into your account (or that exist elsewhere on another Web site). To upload pictures into your account, use the File Manager which is accessible through the Main Menu. Once the picture files (in either GIF or JPEG format) are uploaded, make sure the article format is set to HTML and then click the Use Editor button. On the editor, use the toolbar item to insert pictures at the location of your cursor.

 

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6 - Positioning the Article

At the time you add or edit an article you can also specify its relative position to other articles in the newsletter. The default method is to assign each article a rating from 1 to 100. The layout template then uses the position rating to determine the location of each article. Through position ratings you can designate articles to appear on the cover page, to appear in the table of contents only, or to await manual placement on the layout through the Layout Editor. The position rating also determines the order in which articles appear within regions of the layout and on the plain text version of the newsletter. There are also other factors that can determine the placement of an article within a page. For example, topic assignment is a common method of segmenting articles into areas or specially formatted regions of your newsletter.

 

NOTE: The Cover Page is the front page of the newsletter and is the page delivered via email if you choose the HTML cover page option when sending your newsletter. Readers get to the Topic Page when clicking on one of the topics from the Cover Page.

Standard Positioning

Article positioning can be specified in several ways. When you first open the Article Entry screen, the Standard Article Position options are shown. This allows initial positioning to be determined quickly through 3 choices. Then, positioning can be refined by clicking on the Advanced Positioning button.

 

Advanced Positioning

Article Position:
Show on cover page.
Show on topic page and in table of contents only.
Determine position later.

Advanced positioning lets you specify a number between 1 and 100 to determine the priority of this article in relation to other articles. By default, articles rated 76 - 100 will appear on the Cover Page. Articles rated 51 - 75 will appear in the table of contents only and on the appropriate Topic Page (if applicable). Articles rated 1 - 50 are to be positioned later in special sections defined through the Layout Editor.

 

Positioning Several Articles at the Same Time
If you have several articles that you want to rearrange, you can easily assign position values to all of these articles at the same time by using the Change Order feature on the Article Overview screen.

 

Example
The next illustration shows a newsletter with three articles. These demonstrate the Status / Position feature.

 

TOPIC: ORDER BY: ISSUE:
4 ARTICLES STATUS/
POSITION
Cover Page
  Images
(by Meryl) 		Approved 80   Delete this Article.
  Splash Pages
(by Meryl) 		Approved 76   Delete this Article.
Topic Page
  What is JPEG?
An introduction to a graphics file format
(by Meryl) 		Approved 51   View letters for this article.Delete this Article.
  What is GIF?
(by Meryl) 		Approved 51   View letters for this article.Delete this Article.
[CHANGE ORDER]
Add New Done  

We decide Images is the lead article because it will help prepare the reader to learn about JPEG and GIF formats. We gave it a Cover Page / 80 Positioning. We changed What is GIF? to a Topics Page only positioning in which the system automatically assigned it a 51. Same thing applies to the What is JPEG? article.

Assigning an Article to the Side Bar
A 'side bar' gets its name from the small articles you usually see in a magazine that are related to the main article on the page, but are not actually part of the article. These articles are usually offset to one side of the page and may have a border or change in background color to distinguish the side bar from the rest of the text on the page. The Side Bar function allows you to establish a similar concept within an online newsletter.

 

There are two factors that make a Side Bar work. The first is the designation of an article as a 'side bar' of another. This establishes a parent-child relationship between the main article and the side bar. The second factor is the Side Bar page element located on the Article Page template. This element is configured to automatically show any articles that are designated side bars of the currently selected article. This Side Bar element can be placed in any column and can be formatted differently than the Single Article element which displays the parent article. A single parent article can have multiple side bar articles.

 

Side Bar
A Side Bar is an article that is related to another. A parent article can have one or more Side Bars related to it. The layout template can contain a Multiple Article element that is configured to display Side Bar articles. Generally, a Side Bar article is displayed when its parent article is displayed.
This is a Side Bar for the following parent article:

 

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7 - Showing or Hiding the Article

 

Making a Timely Article Appear and Disappear Automatically
The lifespan of an article is defined by a start date and an end date. The start date determines when the article first appears and the end date determines when it will be automatically removed. This is an advanced feature which allows time sensitive material to be managed in an automated fashion on the companion micro-site and archive. This feature is ideally suited for promotions and events that expire after a certain date and that you do not want included in your online archive. For example, an article describing a Valentine's Day special might include special pricing. By specifying an end date of February 14th, this article will automatically disappear from the newsletter micro-site and archive when the promotion is over. You do not need to re-publish your newsletter.

 

Article Lifespan: (optional)
Fill in a begin and/or end date for this article to determine when and for how long the article will be displayed in your Newsletter. NOTE: If you specify a begin date that comes after the current date, this article will not appear in your published newsletter until this later date.
Begin Date:
 End Date: (use MM/DD/YY format)

Show/Hide Articles Based on Subscriber Data
Another, more sophisticated, method of determining when an article is to be displayed, is to use a Display Rule. The Display Rule allows an article to be shown or hidden based on information known about a particular subscriber. This is done by forming a conditional expression that includes fields from the subscriber record. For example, the Display Rule "STATE equals 'MA' ", would allow the article to only be seen by subscribers from Massachusetts. To define a Display Rule, click the Edit Display Rule button. This will open the Display Rule Editor which lets you easily construct the TRUE/FALSE expression using fields from the subscriber record.

 

Display Rule:
The Display Rule is a TRUE/FALSE statement that determines whether or not this article is displayed for a particular subscriber. The statement compares the values of one or more fields in the subscriber record. If the complete statement is TRUE, the article is displayed. For example, if the statement is 'STATE EQUAL TO MA AND CITY EQUAL TO BOSTON', then only subscribers who are from Boston, Massachusetts will see this article.

 

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8 - Letter Responses for the Article

Letter responses allowed for this article?
Allow readers to post new letters?

A 'letter to the editor' is a way in which the readers of a newsletter provide feedback to the publisher and provide comments and opinion in response to specific articles. Letter responses that are submitted must be associated with a particular article. To allow readers to post letters for the article you are editing, select YES at the Letter responses allowed for this article prompt. In addition, the Allow readers to post new letters prompt should also be set to YES.

 

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9 - Determine the Status of the Article

When collaborating with several people to produce your newsletter, article status can play an important role. The status determines whether or not an article will appear in the newsletter. Only articles with an 'Approved' status are included.

When an article is posted by an 'Author', it is stored in the article list by default with a Pending status. A user with a publisher or editor access level can then review this article and 'Approve' it for publication. If the article is not ready to go live for whatever reason - a fact needs checking, permission, etc., then it can be assigned a Hold status. If a writer submitted an article that has too many errors or is inappropriate for the newsletter, the publisher or editor can Reject it or ask the author to Resubmit.

Even if you are not collaborating with others, the Status setting can be useful for keeping unfinished articles out of your newsletter and organizing the production process.

 

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