Resources EditingWeb Pages with Contribute

This Contribute Quick Start guide is a good basic how-to.

Here are some more tips.

Creating a New Page:
Start with a new page (file->new page)

You may have up to three options of new pages to choose from: templates, a copy of the current page, or a blank page.

• Templates are pages that the web office has created that already have the standard content for a specific area of the web site. You will probably use these often.
• A Copy of the current page will often be even more useful than a bare template. This option gives you the opportunity to reuse information not built into a template.
• Blank pages will often not be an option because they force more work on the user and leave more room for error.

Give the Page a Title
Choose Format -> page properties. Document titles are important for users navigating web sites. They give the title to a bookmark or favorite, and let the user know where they've visited.

Editing Text
(Click and type)

Inserting text will be the most common editing you’re likely to do. Once you have chosen a page to edit, simply enter the text the same way you would a word processor. There are two differences you may not be used to:

• Hitting the return key drops you down two spaces. (Here's a tip: holding the shift key down when hitting return will drop you down one line.)
• You can only move the cursor one space using the space key. If you want more than one space in between words, then you'll have to create a table.

Working With Tables
(Table icon, insert->table)

Most of the formatting in web documents is done by placing content in tables. This provides a dependable structure that is displayed consistently in most browsers. Tables need not have visible borders. Here's an example of using a table to format text:

With a border:

And without:

Creating a New Table
To create a new table place the cursor where you want it and either click the table icon on the editor’s panel, or choose insert -> table from the table menu. This will bring up a dialog box with a number of different properties. Set them as you see fit and click ok.

Editing an Existing Table
To insert a row or column in a table, place the cursor in the table you want to add to and choose table -> insert.

If you want to edit the actual properties of the table either right-click within the table or choose table properties from the table menu. Using this properties box you can change the alignment, table width, border thickness, cell padding, cell spacing, border and background color. There are similar properties for rows, columns and individual cells.

Merging and splitting cells is handy too. To merge two or more adjacent cells, select them while holding down the Ctrl key and either right-click and choose the appropriate operation, or choose the operation from the table menu. There are standard limitations to how a table can be divided depending mainly on the original configuration of rows and columns, so you may not be able to do exactly what you want.

Working With Images
(insert->image, image icon)

If you want to add an image to a web page, it is very important to know something about the image you’re using. There are only three image types that can be displayed on the web, .jpg (or .jpeg), .gif, and .png files. It is also important to know how large the image you are using is. Images used on a web page should be as small as possible. Check the file size, an image 300 by 250 pixels (a reasonable size for a web page) should not be more than 50kb. If you can't change the size of the file, or don't know how to check the size, please contact the web office.

Any time you add an image into a page Contribute will ask you to fill in some ‘alt’ text. Alt text is used as supplemental information for the image, and by programs that read the contents of a web page to visually impaired persons. This text should describe, as succinctly as possible, the image and what purpose it has on the page. There is no need to say "Picture of Anne" simply "Anne" is sufficient.

Solutions to Some Common Problems

I Didn't Mean to Do That or Oops, What Did I Just Do?
Type Ctrl-Z - it will undo the last thing you did. Type it again to undo the second to last thing you did. And so on...

I Didn't Mean to Publish That
Contribute has a rollback option (choose file -> rollback to previous version) that lets you replace a version with one up to three publications back.

I Want to Know Something This Page Didn't Cover

Take these steps in this order:

• Check out this Contribute Quick Start guide pdf.
• Look at the ‘How do I…’ menu on the left side of the window, it is pretty useful.
• Try the tutorial in Contribute. It doesn’t cover much that’s not in here, but there are a few things and it often helps to hear the same thing phrased a different way.
• Look at some online resources:
  • Macromedia Contribute Support Center has lots of useful stuff straight from the experts, tutorials, online forums, tips, etc.
  • Try a Google search for Macromedia Contribute Tutorial to find other tutorials people have created.