Format text with the editor

Wherever your site lets you write more than a line or two of text for people to read, it gives you the same small editor: a box to type in with a row of buttons above it. It is deliberately simple, so that everything written in it looks right on every page and in every email.

Where you will meet it

Place	Box
Pages	Content
Announcements (member portal)	Message
Emails to donors and to ticket holders	Message
Site Settings → Home: About	About the choir, and each leader's Biography
Site Settings → Auditions page	About auditions
Site Settings → Pop-up notice	Message
Site Settings → Donate page	Tax and receipts text

Other boxes on your site are plain text: what you type is shown as it is, with no formatting.

The buttons

The editor with its row of buttons above some text that has a heading, bold and italic words, a list, a quote and a link

Hold the pointer over a button to see its name. A button is highlighted while the cursor is in text that has that formatting. From left to right:

Button	What it does
Heading	Turns the paragraph the cursor is in into a heading. Press it again to turn it back.
Subheading	The same, for a smaller heading under a heading.
Bold	Makes the selected words bold.
Italic	Makes the selected words italic.
Underline	Underlines the selected words. Use it sparingly: on a web page, underlined words look like a link.
Bulleted list	Turns the selected paragraphs into a list with dots.
Numbered list	Turns them into a list numbered 1, 2, 3.
Quote	Sets the paragraph apart as a quotation, indented with a line down its side.
Link	Makes the selected words a link, or changes the link the cursor is in.
Remove link	Takes the link off, leaving the words. Greyed out unless the cursor is in a link.
Undo	Takes back your last change.
Redo	Puts back what you just undid.

To use Bold, Italic, Underline or Link, select the words first, then press the button. For the others, click anywhere in the paragraph.

Typing works as in any word processor:

• Press Enter for a new paragraph. Hold Shift and press Enter for a new line inside the same paragraph, as in an address.
• In a list, press Enter for the next item, and Enter twice to leave the list.
• The usual keyboard shortcuts work: Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+I for italic, Ctrl+U for underline, Ctrl+Z to undo (Command in place of Ctrl on a Mac).

The page's own title is already its main heading, so start your text with a paragraph and use Heading for the sections within it.

Add a link

1. Select the words that should become the link.
2. Press Link. A dialog opens, headed Web address for the link.
3. Type or paste the address in the Web address box, which starts with https:// already in it.
4. Press Set the link.

The Web address for the link dialog with its Web address box and the Cancel and Set the link buttons

What you can type:

You type	The link goes to
https://www.example.org/concerts	That web page
www.example.org/concerts	The same: https:// is added for you
secretary@example.org	A new email to that address: it is made into an email link for you

If no words are selected when you press Link, the address itself is put into the text as the link.

A web address that you type or paste straight into the text is turned into a link as you go.

Every link opens in a new tab, so the visitor does not lose your site. This cannot be changed.

To link to another page of your own site, use its full address, such as https://www.example.org/p/our-history or https://www.example.org/gallery.

Change or remove a link

• Change it: click inside the link and press Link. The dialog opens with the present address. Correct it and press Set the link.
• Remove it: click inside the link and press Remove link. Or press Link, empty the box, and press Set the link: as the dialog says, "Leave it empty to take the link away."

Pressing Cancel in the dialog leaves everything as it was.

What the editor cannot do

• Pictures. Text only. Photos belong in the gallery or in the picture settings of Site Settings.
• Tables and columns.
• Colours, fonts and text sizes. These come from your site's theme, so that every page matches: Change your colours and Change your fonts.
• Centred or right-aligned text.
• Struck-through text, and lines across the page.
• Videos, maps, forms or anything else embedded from another website, and HTML code of any kind. Code that is typed or pasted in is shown as plain characters, not acted on.
• Links to files on a visitor's computer or to anything other than a web page or an email address. A link that is not one of those two is removed, leaving its words.

Pasting from Word, an email or a website

You can paste text from anywhere. The editor keeps the words, and the formatting it understands: paragraphs, bold, italic, underline, lists, quotes and links. Everything else is dropped as you paste: colours, fonts, sizes, pictures, tables and layout.

After pasting, read the result through:

• Headings from the other document may arrive as ordinary paragraphs. Click in each and press Heading or Subheading.
• A table loses its grid and arrives as its words. Rewrite it as a list.
• Extra blank lines are common. Delete them.

Whatever reaches your site is checked once more when you save, and anything outside the list above is removed there too. So what you see after saving and opening the text again is exactly what visitors get.

How long the text can be

Where	Longest text	Message if it is longer
A page	200,000 characters	The page is too long
A box in Site Settings	100,000 characters	The box's name followed by "is too long"
An email to donors or ticket holders	100,000 characters	The message is too long
An announcement	50,000 characters	The announcement is too long

The count includes the hidden formatting marks, so the limit in words is a little lower than these figures suggest. Even so, 50,000 characters is roughly fifteen pages of typing: you are unlikely to meet any of these unless something very large has been pasted in.

A box that needs text and is left empty is refused when you save, for example The page needs some text.