Now that you have downloaded your chosen template folder you need to load it into a word processor to add your content.
Neil Harvey of North Cheshire SC has kindly allowed me to illustrate the process by using the proposed Club website as an example.
Which word processors can I use?
Not all of them, unfortunately. Word processors are strange beasts sometimes and they have their own little quirks which mean that they can't handle this sort of stuff. The templates have been tested, and the method introduced here works, with the following word processors:
- Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows
- Microsoft Word XP for Windows
- Microsoft Word 2000 for Windows
- Open Office 2 for Windows (this is a free Office Suite comparable to Microsoft Office)
- Neo Office for Mac (this is another free Office Suite similar to Open Office)
- Pages 2 for Mac (with some limitations)
The templates will not work in:
- AbiWord
- Ability Office
- Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac
- Text Editors, including WordPad and Notebook for Windows
Other word processors I have not been able to check as I don't have access to them.
The process will be illustrated using Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows and Neo Office for Mac (Open Office for Windows is similar).
What you get
The downloaded folder contains the following files:
index.html |
Your Home Page |
whatwedo.html |
Your description of activities |
news.html |
Your Club news page |
calendar.html |
Your Club calendar |
venue.html |
Details of the location of your venue |
contacts.html |
Club contacts and links to other Clubs |
asc.png |
The ASC logo |
Using the Templates in Windows
The template files are already linked together so you do not need to worry about them at all. Just make sure that you keep all of the files together in the same folder.
The basic procedure is to:
- Open each file in turn
- Add your own content to replace the example text
- Save the file again
In the following examples we will assume that you have stored your folder on your Desktop.
The Home page
Open Word and click File then Open. Select the file index.html from your folder (Word 2003 should do this automatically, with earlier version you may have to select the all files option in the ‘Type of file’ box).
The page will load:
It is now simply a case of replacing just four of the elements as shown above. In the case of the North Cheshire Club:
- Replace ‘XXX’ with ‘North Cheshire’.
- Replace ‘Place your heading here’ with ‘Public Speaking in North Cheshire’.
- Select the ‘Latin’ text and replace it with the chosen Front page text. You might want to change the size of the text at this stage.
- Change the information in the coloured footer bar to include the Club’s contact details.
No change need to be made to the navigation links on the left-hand side of the page. The ASC logo provides a clickable link to the ASC National Site.
The next illustration in this Guide shows the resulting page for North Cheshire Speakers Club.
The Calendar Page
The Calendar page might well require the use of a table to contain the data.
If you know how to insert a table then omit the next section!
Inserting a table
To add a table, position the cursor where you want the table to start within the content area. Click the Insert Table button
Drag out the number of rows and columns that you desire, say 2 columns and 8 rows:
Let go of the mouse button and the table outline will appear. You can drag the column borders with your mouse to get the columns to the width you want:
Adding the dates
When you have the columns as you would wish them, just insert the dates and/or descriptions of your Club’s events:
Adding pictures
If you wish to add a picture to a page make sure that you resize it first and then copy it into the same folder as the rest of the web pages. Then use the usual technique for your word processor to insert the image at the desired spot on the page.
For photographs it is best to use images in JPEG format (that is, something like photo.jpg ), while drawings, such as a logo, are best as GIF images (such as logo.gif).
Using the Templates on a Mac
To illustrate the technique on a Mac, we will imaging that we are using Neo Office a free downloadable office suite similar to Open Office for Windows. The procedure is essentially the same as for Windows, with just differences of detail.
Open Neo Office and click File|Open. Select a page – here index.html and it will open (here the template with top navigation is shown):
Now simply make the changes to the text as described in the previous section and save each document.
The Next Stage
The next stage is to upload the completed website to your web host. This will be the subject of the next webSPEAKER Guide.