Via Bounce
When it comes to electronic publishing, one cliché virtually always rings true: the devil is in the details. In undertaking the development of any electronic newsletter you will probably discover that the most gain, and the most pain, comes from using templates to manage formatting and content layout. Used correctly, templates can be your best friend, and will save you enormous time and energy. Used incorrectly, templates can be your nemesis by consuming both time and energy. But don’t despair, if you have a roadmap and approach it carefully you’ll have made a new friend.
From a top-level perspective, a template is a collection of rules that govern content on a newsletter page. The objective of this month’s column is to cut through the fog and outline the different components that comprise a template, and some practical tips to maximize the experience for both publishers and subscribers.
Once you have decided upon the overall structure of your document, then it is time to roll up your sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of working with templates to manage how content flows into your publication. But before working with template components, there is an interlinked question to consider: what is your content?
The issue of content type is partly related to its media format – text, image, sound, video, flash etc. – its source, and its classification. Is it static content that sits in a flat file somewhere, or is it dynamic content from a database or content feed that updates over time and displays different content to different user profiles?
One reason this distinction is important is that the content type and associated categorization will dictate which template components – called Template Elements in IMN-speak – will be used to layout the document structure. IMN uses a content library that stores the actual media, and the IMN platform utilizes rules in the form of Content Topics and Template Elements to decide not only which content should be placed where, but also what kind of users should be able to view particular kinds of content.
At this stage, we must digress to the subject of content tagging. This is important because IMN can categorize and tag different articles with user-defined content descriptions. These descriptions, called Topics or Categories, are used by templates to place content in specific places on a page. For example, when you setup a section for News, you can specify that this section only displays content tagged as News, and not any other content (for example, editorial, or features or case studies). Thus, it is important to plan your content tagging strategy and categories at the outset.
When you create a new issue, IMN will use a basic 1, 2 or 3 column template as a starting point for your newsletter. While very basic, this does place template components such as Footer and Header elements on the page for you. From there, you need to decide what kind of content flows into your publication, and where you want it placed. In order to manage the different content types and locations, the IMN system uses what are known as Page Elements and their corresponding Attributes. Page Elements and their Attributes are the building blocks of your templates.
In order to get into the details of Page Elements, if you navigate to the main screen, the Layout button will take you to the section where you can edit your template. The most often-used template component is, not surprisingly, the Article element. While other types of Page Attributes, such as Survey, Header and Footer all play a unique role, the bread and butter of the system is the Article element.
There are two types of Article elements; Single Article and Multiple Article. You will find the Multiple Article most useful because you can use it to define sections of articles, and have the system dynamically generate the newsletter depending on articles in the content library and attributes of the intended audience.
Each Page Element has different attributes that govern the way a template component manages both the display and behavior of content within that published page. Attributes include such specifics as display styles, link information, borders, margin and colors, content order, and other specifics.
So, to provide an example, use the Multiple Article Page Element to define a section that will only display content defined in the library as News (using content topics), and display that in a section with a header “News”.
A more common trick is to use the Custom HTML element, and also the custom HTML (before and after) attribute with each of the Element screens, to do some more imaginative content layout. Using custom HTML, you can get greater control of layout of graphics and text. For example, by creating a table without borders, you can then place an image – such as a headshot – within the table then get text to flow and justify either to the right or left hand side. It makes for much richer layout than can be done with just using the normal image dialogue boxes.
Custom HTML can be used for more than headshots, however. You can indent entire columns, or do headers in multiple languages, or simple graphical line breaks with much more control than is achievable otherwise.
One hint: use an external editor, such as Notepad, to save any custom HTML if you are doing revisions. One forgotten “>” could ruin the layout of your whole document. It is much easier to revert if you copy your custom HTML to a local application such as Notepad in case something goes haywire.
Once you have polished your template, and proofread it for prime-time, save yourself time and hassle by saving your template as a default for your publication, enabling you to focus on the content in subsequent publishing cycles. To do this, select Edit Issue Properties from the main screen, and under Option 3, give your template the name it deserves. You’ll then be able to use the fruits of your labor in subsequent issues.
