Working with newsletters
Image size
- Width: Go to an existing newsletter and click "Details" (keyboard shortcut "i") and under "Page Info" check the number on the "width" field. That's the width your image should be (you may need to click "Show/hide additional metadata fields"). It's likely to be either "600" or "700".
- Height: No set rule. We'd recommend a 2x1 look. A 600px width image would have the height of 300px. A 700px width image would have the height of 350px. But otherwise, we suggest keeping a standard height, if possible, throughout a newsletter, for uniformity.
- File size: Below 100KB for 600px images, 120KB for 700KB images.
How to change the image size
Use options available on our Editing Images for Web page. For the Image Maker option, there are two options in the dropdown: "600w newsletter" and "700w newsletter" that will help create an image in the correct size.
Add image to Cascade
- Click "(+) Add Content" and select the correct "Upload Image-..." asset factory.
- Select the image file (or drag and drop it) from your computer.
- If "File Name" has capital letter and/or spaces, consider changing.
- For "Placement Folder" you can keep it as "misc" or select your newsletter's image folder (eg. /images/ceo)
- For "Title" write what will appear as alt text (or potential caption) for the image. Should be a short description. What are you conveying to your audience? If an image contains words, add those words.
- Select "Preview Draft"
- Select "Submit" and "Start Workflow". This will both add the image to Cascade and publish the image to the web.
How to create a new newsletter?
- Click "(+) Add Content" and select "New ... Newsletter"
- Page Name: add the date (eg if it's monthly "202x04") to the name
- Placement Folder: do not change
Top Content:
- Display Name: shows up on the your newsletter feed page, but may or may not show up on your newsletter (depends on your newsletter's default settings)
- Start Date: shows up as the date in your newsletter feed page, but may or may not show up on your newsletter (depends on your newsletter's default settings). You can change, but please do not remove the date.
Sections
These are the sections that make up your newsletter. Your newsletter may have multiple sections or just one. There's usually one story per section, an you can check/uncheck any of these options from your layout.
- Headline 1: Use if you want a headline above an image.
- Image: If you have an image to add to the section, add it here. There's also a "Show Caption" option.
- Headline 2: Use if you want a headline below an image. If you do not have an image, you can choose "Headline 1" or "Headline 2"
- Content: a WYSIWYG to add paragraph content. We advise do not add any formats apart from paragraphs and headings (as or normal classes do not work in newsletters)
- Links: a section of links that can be styled in four different ways.
- Quicklinks: Appears as plain links
- Card Style: Appears with a large associated image (if it exists), title, and optional summary.
- Box Links: Appears as white text with a dark blue background
- Tiles Style: Appears with an aligned-left associated image (if it exists), title, and optional summary.
- Horizontal Rule: A <hr> line appears below the section to denote the end of the section.
If you newsletter is not ready to go live
- Select "Preview Draft". Make sure everything looks right.
- Select "Submit".
- Deselect "Use A Workflow" and "Submit" your changes. This will save your newsletter to cascade. You can then return to the newsletter and click "edit" to make more changes.
If you newsletter is ready to go live
- Select "Preview Draft". Make sure everything looks right.
- Select "Submit".
- Select "Start Workflow" and follow the directions. This will publish the newsletter to the server and also have it show up in your newsletter feed.
- Go to the published "www" version of your page (on www.upstate.edu/newsletters)
- Select and copy the entire page (Edit -> Select All, Edit -> Copy)
- Go to the Outlook Web client (owa.upstate.edu) and create a New Mail
- Paste the page into your content section (Edit -> Paste, or Ctrl + V)
- If it's only appearing as plain text, change your mail view to HTML
- Test the email by mailing it to yourself first