I've just upgraded our blog and comment editor a little to address some issues we were having with some browsers - so I thought I'd update the TIPS AND TRICKS item from last year.

Most of this will be old news to regular users - but it might be useful if you're just starting out on here!

Our blog editor is designed to give you lots of scope for entering and formatting your text. In the blog edit page itself you'll see the toolbar resembles a word processing package. Mouse over each one for a text description of what it does.

Saving your work!
Save your entry every ten minutes or so - just in case. The site will log you out automatically after a period of inactivity.  

Inserting a link

NB: If you just want to link to a single Finextra item, you can use the COMMENT link on that page - this will link your blog post to that story for you.

Links have two aspects - the URL itself and the text for the hyperlink itself.

You can use the URL as the text for the link if you wish - but if it's really long (longer than our lines of text) then it'll go off the end of the page - so usually best not to.

I find the easiest way is to enter your text first and then simply highlight the word or phrase that you want to turn into a link. Then click on the LINK icon in the toolbar  (resembles a chain). A dialogue will pop up for the link URL and an optional title which will appear when people mouse over the link. For the URL always include the full address including http://. 

Stylistically it's usually best to avoid saying "click here" and do something along the lines of buy Pete's music now from sofacom. 

If you change your mind - you can edit or remove the link.

Pasting from Word etc

You can prepare your entry in advance if you wish in Word or OpenOffice. If you wish to do this, keep the formatting simple and don't use tables. Simply copy the text you wish to include and then use the Paste from Word button. 

If it looks odd - try saving and editing it again.

If it throws the page layout completely, then edit the page again and delete the content and paste it in again using the Paste as Plain Text button instead. This will remove the formatting but you can quickly finesse the content using the editor buttons.

As usual - any suggestions let us know.