Text is the backbone of the vast majority of pages on our website. There are various different types of text boxes and input areas to display the content you want to present to your audience. For the most part, these are simple text editors which are work in a very similar way to Microsoft Word, Outlook, or other major word processors. There are a few that allow you to style text, too.
Overview
First things first: the majority of the edits you will make to a web page will be to the text such as adding or removing text areas, fixing typos, adding and removing links. Most page entry types share a common set of text styles, which we will look at here.
Remember to refer to the University's style guide when writing for the web (downloads in Word).
Title and summary
There is on one text area that a page must have – the page title – but in most circumstances, a page will also have a summary. This is 200 characters or less on what the page is about. This doesn’t show on the live page, but might show in the search as a page summary. Make it short and descriptive.
Below is what this page's title and summary look like in Contensis.
Next up is the introduction, known as the ‘lead in’ on Contensis. It uses a simple text editor which has many of the same controls as Microsoft Word - such as bold, italic, sub and superscript, bullet points etc. On the front end of the website, the lead in will appear in its own area as bold text.
'Main content' text options
Next, we will look at the ‘Main Content’ area. Here, there are three main text styles that you're likely to encounter: Text, Text (without bottom margin) and Callout text. These can be accessed by clicking on the green '+' button.
The first two are for most of the content you will write. The only difference is that if you select text without bottom margin, there will be less of a gap between your text and any component below. Choose whichever looks best.
Callout text can be used to highlight a specific point of interest within the text by placing it in a blue box. It works the same as a regular text box. It looks like the following both within Contensis, and on the live website.
With any of these text areas, the main features you will use will be headings, adding, editing or removing links, as well as adding or editing tables. All of these can be found in the text functions at the top of the text boxes.
You can download the style guide to refer to when publishing content here.
It explains when to use the different heading types and how to structure text in a logical hierarchy.
Tables can be accessed by clicking on the three dots in the text editor styling area. They will be styled automatically once published. You can right-click within them to add or remove rows or columns, merge cells, delete content or delete the table altogether.
The image below shows how tables look in Contensis, and then live on the website.
Footnotes
If you've noted something in the main text area - typically using an asterisk - you can add a footnote to provide further context. Examples include terms and conditions that are subject to change or similar.
A footnote component can be positioned under a specific text area or at the bottom of the main content depending on your requirements. It consists of a line of text that looks like this once published: