When you edit articles and tips in supported browsers, Big Medium provides a toolbar of familiar text-formatting buttons, giving you a workspace similar to a word processor for entering and formatting your text.
The rich-text editor requires Internet Explorer 5.5+ (Windows only) or a Mozilla-based browser (Windows, Mac OSX or Linux), including Mozilla 1.4+, Firefox 0.6.1+, Netscape 7.1+, or AOL for Mac OSX.
If you do not have one of these browsers, the rich-text toolbar will not be displayed, but you can instead use Moxie Code to add simple formatting to your text.
Line breaks in Internet Explorer
When editing text in Internet Explorer, typing the "Enter" key starts a new paragraph and inserts two line breaks into the text. To enter only a single line break, type Shift-Enter (hold the "Shift" key while you hit "Enter").
Typing "Enter" (or "Return" for Macs) in a Mozilla-based browser always enters a single line break.
Rich-text toolbar
The toolbar that appears above rich-text content fields allows you to format text as you type.
Style formatting
Select the text you would like to format and click the appropriate style button to change the text's style to bold, italic or underline. These buttons toggle the style formatting on and off, so if the text is already formatted in the style you select, that style formatting will be removed.
Text alignment
Select the paragraph(s) that you would like format and click the appropriate alignment button to align the text left, center or right.
Lists
Select the text that you would like to change to a list and click the appropriate list button to turn the text into a numbered list or a bullet list. If the text is already a list, clicking the button takes the text out of list format.
Indentation
Select the paragraph(s) that you would like to format and click the appropriate button to "outdent" or indent the left margin.
Web links
Select the text that you would like to link and click this button to link to a webpage. Big Medium prompts you to enter the URL of the page. Enter the URL, and click OK.
If you leave the URL blank and click OK, Big Medium removes the link, if any, on the selected text.
Linking to another section of the same article
To link to another spot in the same article, use the web-link button to create the link and the Moxie Code [#] "pound" tag to create the target for the link. Follow these steps:
- Select a name for the target spot you would like to jump to. The name must be one word using only letters and numbers. For this example, we'll use the name:
jump - Select the text that you would like to link, and click the web-link button. For the URL, enter the target spot's name, preceded with
#(the pound sign). Do not includehttp://in the URL, only the pound sign and the target name. For example:
#jump - After entering the URL, click "OK" to create the link.
- Insert the cursor in the target location for the link, and use Moxie Code's
[#]tag to mark the spot, again using the target spot's name. For example:
[#:jump]I want to land here when I click the link.
The target name is case-sensitive, so it should be the same in both the link and the [#] tag. Note that unlike other Moxie Code tags, the [#] tag does not have a closing tag.
E-mail links
Select the text that you would like to link and click this button to link to an e-mail address. Big Medium prompts you to enter the e-mail address. Enter the address, and click OK.
If you leave the e-mail address blank and click OK, Big Medium removes the link, if any, on the selected text.
Undo/Redo
Clicking the "undo" button reverses the last formatting command or deletes the last text you typed. To restore the formatting or text after clicking "undo," click the "redo" button.
Clear Formatting
Clicking the "clear formatting" button removes all formatting from the entire text (not just the selection). Your text remains intact, but it is all changed to plain, left-aligned text. This cannot be undone, and Big Medium asks you to confirm the action before clearing your formatting.
This option may be particularly helpful when pasting text from another application or web page, which may include fonts and formatting that you do not want. Although Big Medium will remove those fonts and formatting when you save the article, the "clear formatting" option lets you start fresh as you enter the text.
Need more help?
For further assistance and documentation, visit the website of Global Moxie, the developer behind Big Medium.