News Articles

Last updated 3/14/2019

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• Purpose: Currently the BEST place on your website to get news, updates, and information out to your families.

Guidelines for News Articles

• Guidelines & Best Practices:
• Make your title short and to the point • ALWAYS add a Subheader
• Post long article content in the Article Text box, not in your Subheader
• ALWAYS add a Thumbnail image for your articles
• Make sure they are up to date and updated regularly!

Click “Edit Page” on the homepage

These are the components that you can access on your homepage. For News, Click the green “Edit”

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The “Manage Existing News Articles” window will appear.

# of articles that will appear on your homepage.

To add a new article: click “Add A New News Article”

List of your Articles.
•	Hold & drag to change order of articles.
•	Click the blue title to edit the article.
•	To delete articles, select them with the checkbox or click delete on right side.

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Article Text: this is where your main information of the article must go.
•	Same basic rules apply as Text Window components.
•	Hyperlink to external websites or emails
•	If copying in from an email or Word doc, don’t forget to “Paste in Plain Text”
•	To add multiple photos, use the insert image icon, select them from your computer, select the photo and click insert.
•     DO NOT add PDFs here (learn how to in part 2)

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Date Visible/Expiration Date: If you want your article to appear or disappear on certain dates, preset them here.

1	 Article Title: Title your article!

2 Subheader: Write a brief splash about the rest of the article.
•	DO NOT leave this part blank. •	2 sentences maximum
•	You can copy the first 2 sentences from your article as preview on the homepage OR you can add the important info here (dates and times) OR summarize what the article is about to get readers interested.
•	This section is visible on your homepage. •	DO NOT write your entire article here!
•	DO NOT place photos in this section.

	Show Read More Link: this is auto checked. If you don’t need to include any
additional or different info from your
		
	Subheader, UNCHECK this box!
		Exit: to exit and see
	
5	Save: Done? Click Save!!!
Doing several? Click the blue Save & New button to write another new article.
		what your article looks like on the homepage.

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• Subheads can be used for:

• Direct information about an event or announcement (dates, times, locations)

• Allows parents to get all the information needed on the homepage without clicking on anything further.

Purpose of the Subhead

• Summary of the article

• 2 sentences MAX about the main idea of the article

• Tip: if your article is longer than 2 sentences, copy the first 2 sentences from the article and
use them as the Subhead! • Posting Links on the homepage

• You can post a hyperlink in the subhead for anything from sign up forms, PDFs that are already
loaded elsewhere on your website, external websites, or pages within your site already!

If you do not have a Subheader for your article, this is what it looks like on the homepage.

If you do not have any News Articles, this is what it looks like on your homepage.

If you do not place your text in the article text, this is what your article looks like on your homepage: too much text.

If you do not place your text in the article text, this is what your article looks like once viewers click the title: a blank article.

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• Do not:

• Attach images to the subhead.

Subhead Do Nots

• If sized incorrectly, they may take up too much room on
your homepage and leaves your users scrolling.

• Instead, use the thumbnail option for photos to appear on
your homepage!

• Include no more than 2 sentences for your text so that it is not
overcrowded with information.

• The Article Text box when creating your news article should be used for the following:

When to use the Article Text:

• Including information about an event or news piece happening at the school

• You may have already included the date and time, but if there are details, include them HERE!

• Adding Photos of something that happened at the school

• Include your photos about an awards ceremony or the results of the sports match or your new teacher
hires HERE!

• Adding information that you don’t want an entire page on your website for, but it needs somewhere to live

• If you have parents calling the front office about something specific, consider writing the
information they need to know in a news article to cut down on repetitive phone calls.

When to NOT use the Article Text:

• The only information needed is posted in the subhead (date, time, location, etc)

• If this is the case, make sure you UNCLICK the button “Show Read More Link”
• It is always automatically clicked for you as the default.

What happens if you don’t have anything to write in your article, but you forget to UNCLICK the read more button:

• Completely blank article.

Part 2

• Converting your PDF to a JPG

• Adding Thumbnail Photos to your articles • Attaching PDF files to your articles
• Posting a link in the Subhead or Article Text

* Before learning how to upload your image or PDF attachments to your article, first find out if the visual you want to attach to your News Article a .jpg image. News articles will only allow you to add a .jpg image for your thumbnail that appears on the home screen with your article.

Often times, you have a PDF document that you want to use as an image. Follow these steps to convert your PDF to a .jpg image!

1 Open your PDF. It should open in Adobe Acrobat Reader

5	 Now, proceed to the following steps to make this image your thumbnail on your homepage for that
article.

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Click File in the upper left corner.

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In the dropdown, click Export To > Image > JPG

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Choose where you want your file to save. You should now have TWO files: 1 PDF format, 1 JPG format.

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Thumbnail Photos are MANDADORY

You can add:
•	Photos of your school/students
•	A clipart image or icon from the internet

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*
Thumbnail Photos are MANDADORY

You can add:
•	Photos of your school/students
•	A clipart image or icon from the internet

To add your Thumbnail
1	Photo: Click the article title.

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Article Title Key:
•	Title is red = it has expired
•	Title is Blue = it is currently posted
•	Title is purple-ish = has not posted yet

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Look at the tabs: Images & Attachments. These were not here before. They only appear when
2	you go back into the article.

The Placement tab will not help with any part of the article. Avoid this tab.

* Thumbnail Photos are MANDADORY

You can add:
•	Photos of your school/students
•	A clipart image or icon from the internet
•	Make sure photos are horizontal, not vertical

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Click the Images tab	3

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Section 1: Thumbnail Photos

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Choose your thumbnail file from your computer. • Keep the “Scale
New…” box checked. • Keep the Resize
Thumbnail at 350.

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Describe your image to remain ADA compliant.

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Done? Click Upload/Save images

*	 Section 2: Embedded Images An Embedded Image is a single
photo you can upload to the INSIDE of the article. If you want users to click the Read More and see a photo within the article, upload it here. Repeat steps 4-6 to upload the photo.

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7 After saving, it will take you to this page. You can edit anything last minute. Click the green save and it will be added to your article as a thumbnail.

To view how it looks, click the X in the top right corner.

If you uploaded an Embedded Image, it will also appear here.

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View of thumbnail for article on homepage.

It auto scales for all sites; rounded corners for Jr. High and High School sites.

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Too add a PDF attachment

Click the Attachments tab	8

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Title your PDF

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Choose your file from your computer

11Click the green ADD button

Update: There are now RTFs for compliance of PDFs in the news component. It is auto-checked for you!

12	Click SAVE

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Click the X in the upper right corner to see your homepage and look at your PDF.

13	Your PDF appears here.

To edit your upload, click the title.

To add more, repeat the title and upload process.

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When viewers click on your article title, they will see your PDF under an Attachments Available to Download section of your article.

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How to link to websites or internal pages inside your Subheader or Article Text:

Click HERE to check out the new Winter Sports Schedule.

2 Highlight the word you want to use as your
hyperlink.

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Type what you want your link to say:

Click the chain link icon to attach your hyperlink to the word.

4 Paste your website url here:
•	You can use an external website (copy the website and paste it in the URL box)
•	OR you can copy and paste a URL from one of your pages inside your school website! (https://chs.com/activities.aspx)

If you want this link to appear inside the article, you can type the same thing and attach the link here too, just repeat steps 1-4.

Make sure the link opens to a new Window	5

Click OK

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Results:

Your link will appear in your subhead where users can click on it and it will take them to the link!

AND your link will appear in your article body where users can click on Read More and they can click on the link from here!

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How to link to PDFs from your website inside your Subheader or Article Text:

Have you uploaded a PDF to a page on your website using a Downloads component?

YES
(ie: The Sports Schedule PDF is uploaded to the Winter Sports page)
			
Go to the page with the PDF and click the link on the webpage so that it opens in a new tab.
			
Copy the URL website address of the tab with the PDF.
			
Use this link to hyperlink in your news article and follow the steps from slides 20-21.

		
				
	NO

			

Follow the directions from the “How to add a PDF or Download” tutorial and add your PDF to a page on your website.

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How to make news items stand out

Utilize the thumbnail photo to graph user’s attention!

Search for images and icons online!