Advanced Message Formatting Tips
Your home page message is a section of HTML that is interpreted by the internet browsers that you and your athletes use. To customize your message, use the toolbar features to do things like making text bold or a different color, adding links and images, making bulleted lists, and adding/editing tables. If you are more familiar with HTML, you can include links to other web pages, embed sound files, flash, and do anything else possible on a normal web page.
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- Message Background Color
- To set the background color of your entire message, click the Background Color swatch above the message editor.
In the popup box, choose from the default color palette or create a custom color.
After selecting your color, click the Set Color button to save it.
The page will refresh with your new color as the background.
- Message Width
- The Regular message area is 650 pixels wide. If you need more room, set the Message Width to Large and your message area
will be 900 pixels.
Note: Be mindful of mobile devices when creating your content. If you create a table or other element with a fixed width greater than 360px,
that section will be too large to display nicely on mobile devices.
Be sure to switch to the Mobile View and check that your content will look good on smaller screens. - Bold, Italics, Underline
- To make a section of text bold, italicized,
or underlined, highlight a portion of text and click the corresponding
icon
from the toolbar. To undo a portion of text that has
already been styled, highlight the section of text again and click the
corresponding icon 
to return to normal text.
- Text Color
- To change the color of your text,
highlight a portion of text and click the text color button
.
Choose from one of the standard colors on the left, or create your own custom color and then click Choose.
- Text Background Color
- To change the background color
of your text, highlight a portion of text and click the background color
button
.
Choose from one of the standard colors on the left, or create your own custom color and then click Choose.
- Text Size
- To change the size of text, highlight a portion
of text and select the desired size from the Font size dropdown
on the top row of the toolbar.
- Clear Formatting
- To return a portion of text to its original size or color, highlight the section of text and click the Remove
Formatting icon
on the top row of the toolbar.
- Paste as Text
- Paste as Text will remove all formatting and just leave the text. This option is useful when you have copied
something from Word or a webpage and it is pasting with weird formatting.
To use the Paste as Text feature, follow these steps:- Click the Paste as Text icon in the toolbar
to enable the mode. - Place your cursor and press CTRL-V (or right click your mouse and select Paste).
- Copy and paste as much as you want.
- Click the Past as Text icon again to turn it off.
- Click the Paste as Text icon in the toolbar
- Spell Checker
- This editor uses the same spell checker that is built into your browser. Most modern browser spell checkers
put a red squiggled line under any incorrect words as you type, and if you right-click on the word, you will see a list
of suggested words to correct it.
The spell checker is usually turned on by default. See your browser's help/setup page for more info. Here are help docs for the most common browsers: Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari - Horizontal Line
- To make a horizontal line across your message, such as to separate different
sections, simply click the toolbar icon that looks like a horizontal line
. To remove a horizontal line, place your cursor at the end
of the line just above the horizontal ruler and hit the Delete key
on your keyboard.
- Links to Web Pages or Files
- To create a link to another web page or downloadable file, highlight the text that you want
to become a link and then click the Link icon
from the toolbar. A window will pop up that will help you create the link.
Link list - At the bottom of the window, we list all of your Extra Message Pages and non-image documents from your Downloads. Select one and the URL and Display Text are populated. No more copy/pasting URLs for these QuickScores items.
URL - Type or copy/paste in the web address of your link
Text to display - This should be the text you highlighted, or type something new.
Open link in... - If you want the webpage to open up in a new window/tab, change this to "New window".
Click Save when you are finished (you can ignore Title).
Tips for creating links:
Type in the text, create the link (as instructed above), and only after the link is created should you edit the text to change the font size, color, etc.
When creating multiple links, type all the text first, always put at least one line of space between each link, create the link for each line of text, and only after you are done creating all the links should you then edit any of the lines of text to change the font size, color, etc. - Editing a Link
- To edit a link, place your cursor anywhere on the link and click the Link icon
and the same window will pop-up as before allowing you to
edit the link information. Click here for more help with editing the font color and size of a link.
- Removing a Link
- To remove a link, place you cursor anywhere on the link and click the Unlink icon
and the link will be removed and the text returned to normal.
- Links to Email Addresses
- Most sports directors include their name and contact information in their
home page message, and that contact information usually includes an email
address. Making a link to an email address is the same process as any other link, except
you make the URL start with "mailto:" then the email address.
- Insert/Edit an Image
- To make a graphic or picture appear, place your cursor where you want
the image to appear in the message then click the Image icon
from the toolbar.
- The new Image list dropdown box will let you include any of your previously uploaded images. Instead of having to copy/paste URLs, it will fill out the URL and display text upon selection. If you have a local file that you want to include, go to Setup >> Downloads and upload any images first.
- If there is an image elsewhere on the internet that you want to include, paste its URL into the Source box.
- Feel free to add an Image Description which is used by accessibility readers and in case the image fails to load.
- Change the Height or Width as desired. It will change the other value in order to maintain the same aspect ratio.
- Click Save when you are done to add the image to the page.
Editing an image: To edit an image, click on the image and then click the Image icon
from the toolbar.
Make any desired changes as described above, then click the Update button
and your image will be updated with the new properties.
Deleting an image: To delete an image, simply select the image from your message and hit the Delete key on your keyboard. - Changing Color/Size of Links
- We've heard that changing the text size or color of a link can occasionally cause headaches, but it is actually
quite easy if the steps are done in a certain order. In short, the best way to create a link is to
create the link first and then change the size and color of the text after the link is created.
Note: Please follow these steps closely. If you do things in a different order (like creating a link out of text that is already styled), the formatting might not work as expected.
How to Create a Styled Link
- Select the area where you want to insert the link and place the cursor there.
- Type in the text of the link as you want it to appear on your message page.
- Once the text is correct, highlight it and click the Link icon .
- Enter the desired URL.
- Click Insert on the link window.
- Click Save Message.
- View the message in the preview window and test the link.
- To change the size or color of the text, select the font color and text size with the icons above the edit window.
- Click Save Message and view your text in the preview window to verify that it is what you want.
- Change the size and color as needed.