Authoring your ezine
Authoring an HTML ezine is quite different from the recommendations outlined for authoring corporate webpages. If you are a UniSA staff member you may want to outsource this.
Setting up the ezine
Create a folder and URL for your ezine
As the ezine is authored using HTML, make a blank page (not based on the corporate web templates) within the website that the ezine is going to link to for further information:
- In FrontPage, go to File/New... and select the Blank page option
- This will open a page called 'new_page_1.htm' or similar
- Go to File/Save As... and save this page in a folder created for your ezine, giving it an appropriate name (eg 'august06' if there will be more) using the usual naming conventions
- Your page should now be called 'name.htm' or 'name.html' (NOT 'name.asp' as with the corporate web templates).
For
example, the savvy ezine for August was created in the savvy website within
an ezine folder so the URL is
unisa.edu.au/savvy/ezine/august06.html. It's probably best to create a new folder
called ezine and an example of a filename of the ezine could
be august06.html. Note the .html extension, not .asp as the
corporate web uses. As per our recommendations for the
corporate web, keep the images in an images folder.
Writing the code
If you are creating an ezine from scratch, use the following as guidelines so your ezine will be viewed intact by a maximum number of people. If you haven't already, you need to create a blank HTML page. You will also mostly need to use the HTML view rather than the Normal view in FrontPage.
See how other ezines have been authored (see some examples) by right clicking on them and selecting View Source. Seeing how another ezine was created may help you write your own ezine in HTML code.
You need to author your ezine using inline coding. See examples below.
Use tables for layout
We recommend not having a table any wider than 550 pixels which is the same width used in the UniSA corporate left-hand menu template.Create styles for the ezine
Paragraph styles
<p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #000066;">Don’t miss out on UniSA’s Open Day on Sun 20 Aug. Attend info sessions, see student exhibitions, talk to staff and students, and enjoy live local bands from Nova919’s HomeBrew segment.</p>
This would look appear in the ezine looking like this:
Don’t miss out on UniSA’s Open Day on Sun 20 Aug. Attend info sessions, see student exhibitions, talk to staff and students, and enjoy live local bands from Nova919’s HomeBrew segment.
Note the code used for apostrophes (see below for the code to use for quotes).
Link within a paragraph
<p style="font-family: Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color:
#000066;">Don’t miss out on UniSA’s <a style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12px; color: #000066;
text-decoration: underline" href="http://www.unisa.edu.au/openday/">Open Day</a>
on Sun 20 Aug. Attend info sessions, see student
exhibitions, talk to staff and students, and enjoy live
local bands from Nova919’s HomeBrew segment.</p>
This would look appear in the ezine looking like this:
Don't miss out
on UniSA's
Open Day on Sun 20 Aug.
Attend info sessions, see student exhibitions, talk to
staff and students, and enjoy live local bands from Nova
919's HomeBrew segment.
Link heading style
<a style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; color: #000066;
text-decoration: none" href="http://www.unisa.edu.au/openday/">UniSA
Open Day.</a>
This would look appear in the ezine looking like this:
UniSA Open Day.
Quote/apostrophe styles
For using right or left single or double quotes, or an apostrophe, you will need to use
special code so they appear in the ezine correctly.
’ Right single quote/apostrophe - use this code ’
‘
Left single quote - use this code ‘
“
Left double quote - use this code “
”
Right double quote - use this code ”
Add images
All images need to be located on the production
server and referenced as absolute URLs. For example:
<img src="http://www.unisa.edu.au/savvy/ezine/images/choose.jpg"
alt="Choose your direction" width="283" height="102" />
You will need to create the HTML page with absolute image references on www.newdev to view the ezine as a whole, then publish the page and the images to the production server. You will then need to change the images references within the code to remove the newdev. part within the image source.
Note: all images must have the size (height and width) specified.
Personalising the ezine
Ezines sent out via ISTS can be personalised, that is it can have an individual's name at the top (see an example).
This is easy to setup. All you need to do in the ezine is put Hi {displayname}, and ISTS replace {displayname} with the individual's first name. Of course you don't have to use 'Hi', you can use whatever salutation you wish. See example on the development server that has {displayname}.
The published webpage version, however, should not have this. Therefore before you publish the final version, replace {displayname} with something generic like 'Alumni member' so that if people do view your ezine on the web server they do not see {displayname} as it doesn't look very professional. See the example on the production server that has Supporter instead of {displayname}.
Once you have published the 'Hi Alumni member' replacement, change it back to 'Hi {displayname},' so that when ISTS send out the ezine, {displayname} is replaced with the individual's name.