There are two areas in EventElephant where you can add the main body of content for your site.
The first is in the ‘Create an event’ wizard. The second is in the Event Control Area.
To add content when you’re in the ‘Create an event’ wizard, just type what you want to say in the large text box of the content editor.
To access the content editor via the Event Control Area, go to ‘Modify your event’ then click ‘Preview your site’.
The preview should appear. Click ‘Edit’ to open the content editor and add text and images to the content panel.
Next, you need give your content panel a title. Just click the ‘Page title’ field and enter any name you like – ‘Event details’, for example.
The next step is to populate your content panel. Simply click in the text area and type the details of your event. You can use the toolbar at the top of the text area to stylise your text. The toolbar is really easy to use – it’s just like the one in Microsoft Word.
The content editor
The content editor works in much the same way as Microsoft Word and most email systems. You simply write your text in the space provided and use the familiar icons to:
Choose fonts and colours
Add images and photos
Insert flash
Add gridlines or tables to organise the layout of your content and photos
Insert special characters/smiley faces
Insert/remove bulleted or numbered lists
Add indents
Justify copy
Insert/edit links
Check spelling
Undo actions
Copy and pasting
When you’re using the content editor you can save time by copying and pasting. There are three ways to copy and paste from Microsoft Word.
Use the content editor’s ‘Paste as plain text’ feature. It's the button with a clipboard and the letter ‘T’.
You simply highlight and copy the text in Word, then go to the content editor and click ‘Paste as plain text’. A window will pop up – just paste the text into this window and click ‘OK’.
Use the content editor’s ‘Paste from Word’ option. It's the button with a clipboard and the Word icon.
Click this button and a window will pop up – you just copy and paste from Word into this window. But before you do, make sure you tick the ‘Ignore font face definitions’ box below the window. This changes whatever font you used in Word eg Times New Roman, Arial etc, to your website’s predefined font.
You’ll also see the ‘Remove styles definitions’ tick box. If you don’t tick this box, you’ll keep all the style changes you’ve made to the text in Word, such as bold, italicise, and underline. This saves you having to do it all over again after pasting the text into the content editor.
You can also copy and paste the text from Word into Notepad. Notepad strips out any formatting made to the text you’re copying and turns everything into plain text.
Once you’ve copied and pasted into Notepad, you simply copy and paste from Notepad into the content editor.
You’ll find Notepad by clicking the ‘Start’ menu on your PC or laptop – it’s usually in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Next, click ‘All programs’, then ‘Accessories’, then ‘Notepad’.
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Inserting images
Inserting an image into your content panel is really easy to do.
First, click ‘Insert/edit image’ on the toolbar.
The ‘Image properties’ window will appear. Click the ‘Upload’ tab at the top of the window and then click ‘Browse’.
Next, browse your computer for the image. To upload it, select the desired image and click ‘Open’.
If you don’t have any suitable images of your own, you can always search Google Images for ideas, plus there are a number of ‘stock’ photo sites that you can use.
Next, click ‘Send it to the server’.
You’ll then see a preview of your image. From here you can rescale the image (you can also do this later when the image is on the page).
There’s also a text area called ‘Alternative text’. It’s important to give the image a descriptive name, as this will be used to describe the image to visually impaired users who use screen readers.
When you’re happy with the preview, click ‘OK’ to see your image on the page. Now you need to scale the image to exactly the size you want. To adjust the scale, right-click on the image and choose ‘Image properties’.
When you’re in the ‘Image properties’ window you can change the dimensions of your image. In the case of the example below, it should be half the size of the content panel’s width, which is 290 pixels (the width of the content panel is 580 pixels).
When you’re changing either the width or the height of an image, make sure ‘Lock ratio’ is set to ‘On’. This stops the image from being scaled disproportionally.
Once you’ve set the new dimensions, click ‘OK’. You’ll see the re-sized image on the page. If you want the image to be centred on the page, click the image and then click ‘Centre justify’ on the toolbar.
And that’s it. All done. If you’re happy, click ‘Save’.
Remember, you can import as many images as you like, and you can preview your work at any time by clicking ‘Preview’ at the bottom of the screen.
Adding tables to organise content and images
You can make your text and images look neat and structured by clicking the ‘Insert/edit table’ icon.
It lets you create gridlines or tables (just as you would in a Word document), helping you separate and space text and images so that your page looks professional.
When you click the ‘Insert/edit table’ icon, a new window of tools will appear, allowing you to:
Create rows and columns for your table
Set the width and height
Set a thickness for the border or gridlines
Set how far the text or image starts from the edge of the border
Align your text or image to start at the top, middle, left, right or centre of the table
You can make the gridlines or borders disappear so they don’t appear on your website by setting the ‘Border size’ to ‘0’.
Note: the lines will still appear on the page but don’t worry, they won’t appear on the website.
Balancing your table
If you use tables make sure you balance the number of cells. Otherwise the table won’t appear aligned on your site.
A
balanced table looks like this;
An
unbalanced table looks like this;
You can balance a table by merging cells. For example, the table above could be balanced by merging cells 3 and 6:
You can upload your own banners and logos, or you can use one of the ready-made design themes in the ‘Create an event ‘wizard. Or if you prefer, you can upload a banner or logo onto a design theme.
You can upload banners and logos in three formats – GIF, JPG and PNG. There are two ways to upload them. The first is by using the ‘Create an event ‘wizard. The second is by going to the Event Control Area and then ‘Event logo/banner’.
From either of these two areas, you can search for the banner/logo on your computer by clicking ‘Browse’. Once you’ve found the banner/logo, click ‘Upload’.
Your banner/logo will now appear on your website and in the Event Control Area.
The banner/logo is automatically positioned in the header space at the top of your site.
If you click the banner/logo in the Event Control Area, you’ll see how it will appear on your site.
Banner and logos sizes
There’s no maximum size for a banner, although the preferred size is 970x400 pixels. If your banner is larger than this, EventElephant will resize it for you – however, the banner must keep its aspect ratio/size proportions.
For example, a banner that’s 500x1000 pixels would not be accepted, but a banner that’s 1800x600 would be fine.
There are some limitations on the size of the logo you can use. The maximum dimensions for a logo is 750x150 pixels. The same rule applies regarding keeping the aspect ratio/size proportions the same.
To find out the size of your image, click on it so that it’s highlighted. Next, right-click the mouse and a box will appear. Scroll down and click ‘Properties’. A new box will appear, with the tabs ‘General’, ’Security’, ‘Details’ and ‘Previous Versions’. Click ‘Details’ and in the new box you’ll see the width and height of your image.
If the banner/logo you upload is too big, EventElephant will shrink the space around the dimensions of the banner/logo to make it fit.
You won’t be able to upload the banner/logo if it is:
Very large or very small
Out of proportion – in the case of banners for example, the width cannot be less than the height
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If your banner/logo is unsuitable, you can resize it using an editing tool, such as Photoshop. Or you can get in touch with EventElephant and one of our designers will resize it for you.
Contact us via telephone
Dublin Office: Call 00353 (0)76 615 3182 and ask for Anna or Derek
London Office: Call 0044 (0)208 334 8068 and ask for Sarah or David
Contact us via email
Via
support@eventelephant.com. A member of the team will get back to you as soon as possible.
If you do not have a banner,
click here for a quick tutorial on how to build one.