Formatting Content

An explanation of the functions available in the editor.

Tip: TinyMCE automatically provides space after each paragraph that you type. To break lines without adding this space, hold down Shift while pressing the Enter key. On a Mac, press Shift+Return.

Bold, Italic, Underlined, and Strike Through

If you have highlighted the text you want to format and select a formatting button, the selected text will have that format applied to it. If the text is not selected, all text which is entered after the button is selected will have the formatting applied to it. Just like a word processor, multiple formats can be applied.

Subscript and Superscript

Highlight the text you want to subscript or superscript and select the either the subscript or superscript button.

Numbered List/Bulleted List

Select the list of text you want to format (each item must be a separate paragraph) and select either Insert/Remove Numbered List or Insert/Remove Bulleted List. Three levels of bullets have been created. To create secondary and tertiary levels in lists, select the portion of the list you want to indent and click on the Increase Indent button (see next).

Increase and Decrease Indent

Increase or decrease the highlighted text lines. This tool can be used to control indents in numbered or bulleted lists.

Alignment

Click once to align your text on the page. The default is left aligned and is recommended for most content.

Links

Select text or an image, and then click to link to an anchor, page, outside URL, or email address. The button on the right removes a link. When creating a link to a page outside of the School of Medicine, be sure to click the "Advanced" tab and change the target to "Open in a new window." This makes the link open in a new browser window so that the user can continue browsing your site at the same time.

Anchors

Once you've placed an anchor at a specific spot on a page, you can later link to that anchor to make traveling there a breeze. When creating an anchor, you'll be prompted to name it so you can target it specifically.

Tip: If a page is long enough to warrant an anchor link that returns users to the top, it's a good idea to create a link like the example at the bottom of this page. To link to anchors:

Make the link by highlighting the text you wish to link (in this case, the word [top]), then insert a link.
In the Insert/edit link box, browse to & select the page containing the anchor.
On the far right of your screen, choose your anchor from the Anchors drop-down menu, then select Update.

Note: When you add an anchor to a page, you must save the page before you can link to the anchor.

Link Anchor

Images

Click to insert images. You'll prompted to browse to the image location, as well as select border, spacing, and alignment properties. By placing a short description in the alternative text field, you make such information accessible to users with disabilities, or who are otherwise unable to view images. You can also upload images using this tool.

Tables

Tables are handy containers for information that must be aligned in rows and columns. They can be formatted to you liking, and edited after creation by right-clicking (or control+clicking on a Mac). See Working with Tables for more information.

Horizontal Rule

Inserts a simple divider line (left) & allows custom formatting of divider lines (right).

Insert Special Character

Inserts symbols and special characters (trademark, currency, etc.). Place your cursor in the location you want to insert the special character. Click on the Insert Special Character button and choose the character you want to insert. Once you click on the special character, the Select Special Character window will close automatically. If you decide not to insert a special character, choose Cancel.

Style

Select the text you want to format and choose a style from the drop down menu. Four levels of web site headers are included here (heading 2 will create the largest text, heading 5 the smallest), as well as a formatted style. The formatted style choice adds padding around the selected text, fills the background color with a light gray, and adds a slightly darker gray border. With other options, you can increase font size or apply other custom styles, such as discreet text, & highlighted text. You can only apply one style at a time. To remove styles, select the styled text and choose Normal from the drop down menu. (Note: Images can also be styled, with an Image Border.)

Text Color

Select the text you want to adjust and click on the text color button. You can choose from the basic color choices that appear, or choose More Colors. More colors contains a color picker with more color choices. If you know the color hex value that you want to use, enter it in the dialog box and hit ‘OK’.

Background Color

Select the area you want to add a background color to and click on the Background color button. More colors are available (see Text Color for a more detailed description on customizing colors). This tool should be used sparingly.

Remove Format

Click to remove font size changes. (Note: This button won't remove styles chosen from the Format drop-down menu.)

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