Cartoon above look familiar?  Been there, done that too many times myself!  Here are some valuable tricks that Lori and I have discovered:

Whenever you push the "Edit page" button at the top right of your screen, you'll see a tool bar at the top of the page.  It's very similar to an MS Word tool bar and will allow you to do all sorts of things with the text and images on your page.  The best thing to do is to play around with these tools for a while and get used to what they do. 


          Copy and Paste

Copy and paste works just fine in Google Sites.  One thing to keep in mind (which I didn't fully appreciate until recently) is that when you "copy" some text (or an image or a table) from a document, you also copy the HTML code that's behind it.  So if you're migrating some stuff from Geocities (or anywhere else), you'll also migrate the HTML code that goes with it.  While this works, some of the Geocities HTML code - especially the ones built using PageBuilder - can be VERY complex and nearly impossible to maintain.  This generally doesn't cause serious problems, but you just need to be aware of this possible pothole in the road. 

If you want to copy and paste JUST the text, you can copy it to your clipboard using Ctl-C and paste it into Notepad using Ctl-V.  As Notepad doesn't have any HTML capability, all the HTML code is stripped from the text when it is pasted into Notepad.  Then you can re-copy the text from Notepad and and paste it onto your page in Google Sites as pure text with no underlying HTML code at all.  I use this trick all the time and it makes thing a lot simpler.



          Links and hyperlinks

 A "link" is the raw address like http://www.westutter.org/.  A "hyperlink" is more friendly words like Click here to see the main NSA website.  You create both links and hyperlinks using that "Link" tool.  You can also tell the system to open that link in a new window or not by checking a box at the bottom of the pop-up window.  That's a VERY handy capability!

When you use the "Link" tool, be sure you X-close the resulting command line which appears below the link.  That SAVES whatever you did.  If you don't X-close that line, your changes will not be saved.  (That drove me crazy until I realized that!) 



          Use of pictures and images

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Hopefully you'll have some pictures on your computer, probably in your "My Pictures" directory.  You can edit those pictures with image editors like Photoshop or any number of other editors.  Use of those editors is beyond the scope of this document, but we'll assume you at least have some pictures on your computer that you can use for your website.

Just above the tool bar is a menu bar that says "Insert  Format  Table  Layout".  To insert a picture on your page, click on Insert > Image and follow your nose.  An example...

    

You can select the alignment and size of the picture in the command line that goes along with the picture.  And just like the "Link" command, be SURE to X-close the command line when you have sized the picture and placed it where you want it.  You can also make the picture a hyperlink.  If you do that, you may may have to go back after saving, and edit it more to erase the website link text next to the image.  You can erase the text of the hyperlink to the right of the image in the edit window.  Once saved, it should still link to the site just by clicking the image (but the website won't be spelled out next to it.)  We've found this little "error" and the way around it.

You can also justify the image how you want it (L, C, R for left, center, right).  Another handy feature is the "wrap text" option.  If you set it to "ON", it's much easier to embed images within text, such as on the top of this page, or at the NSA Los Angeles Monthly Meetings page  for an example of an image embedded ("wrapped") in text.  Play around with the positioning of the image, by dragging it to different lines, to get the feel of this. 




          Inserting interactive maps

One REALLY COOL feature of Google Sites is its ability to easily embed interactive maps to your meeting location.  Simply click on "Insert > Map" and follow your nose.  For example the location of the Dallas NSA chapter is the Callier Center at 1966 Inwood in Dallas.  Here's what that map might look like ...



The map is completely interactive and you can set the title, size and alignment very easily.  Try it... You'll like it!



          Editing your sidebar

Once you get your site looking pretty much like you want it, you can edit your sidebar on the left to be used as a navigation tool to move around your website.  This is really a cool feature because it relieves you of the necessity of embedding links in each page pointing to other pages.  (You can still do that, of course, but why work if you don't have to?)  It also is makes your site much more user-friendly and organized.  Click on the "Edit sidebar" link on the left and you'll see how easy it is to create your own navigation links.  You need to play around with this a little to see how it works, but it's fundamentally pretty easy.  Watch for scroll bars on the right of internal windows to be sure you can access all the options. 

To embed an image in the side bar, like the NSA logo, you'll want to Add a Sidebar Item > Text (scroll down!) and insert an image, edit the size to "S" for small, and hyperlink it to the NSA website at www.WeStutter.org.  If you can do this - and you CAN! - you'll be a real pro at Google sites!


SPECIAL NOTE:  For some reason, all the colors and fonts settings (for the whole page) are found in the "edit sidebar".


         HTML as a last resort

For you die-hard techies out there, there's an HTML button on the toolbar that you CAN use if you want.  This entire document was made without ever using that button.  The stuff you'll want to use in your chapter website typically does NOT require any fancy HTML code.  (Thank heavens!)  But it's there if you REALLY want to use it. 



          Other things you can do

Like MS Word, there are jillions of other capabilities that Google Sites provides, some of which neither Lori nor I have begun to explore.  You can insert tables, change the fundamental layout of your pages, change the color schemes and themes...  the list is virtually endless.    Next to the "Create page" and "Edit page" buttons on the top, there is a third button called "Other options" that gives you access to a mind-blowing set of choices, most of which I don't have a clue what does.  There are some simple things like "Move page" and "Delete page" which are easy to work, but some of the other options are far more complex.  You can also hit "Page Settings" to pick general preferences.  One option is "Share this site" which allows you to get help from other people.  Lori and I share this site, so either one of us can make changes as necessary.  If you need help with your site, you can share your site with either of us and we'll be glad to help you.  See the Contact Us page for details on this.