Editing Portfolio Appearance

You can change the appearance of your portfolio to fit your personal preferences and to fit the content on individual pages.

Changing the General Appearance

To change the overall "look" of the site, you can change the theme or layout, which will apply to the entire site. To change the theme

Select "More Actions" (top right).
Scroll down and select "Manage site."
Scroll down to Site Appearance and select "Themes."
Select and preview different themes.
Save the theme you want, which will apply to all pages.

Tip: Changing the theme may require you to change the color of your text.

Other Appearance Tips

Many other options exist for customizing your site. The best way to learn them is to try them. You can add buttons, gadgets, and more. However, remember to keep the focus of your site on a professional message, not the design. Too many "bells and whistles" can overpower your message.

Tip: Duplicate your site and "practice" on the duplicate so that you can "experiment" with other options that don't show up on your main site. To duplicate your site

Select "More Actions" (upper right).
Select "Manage Site."
Select "General" under Site Settings.
Select "Copy this site" under Site Actions.

Your new site will appear in your list of sites. On your site page, select "more" in the upper tool bar, then "Sites." Your new site should be listed here.

Specific Typographical, Layout, or Individual Page Changes

For specific changes to pages or text, use the tool bar at the top of each page, which is available when you "Edit Page." This will allow you to change the type style, color, and layout, etc. for text you select or the page you are working on.

To change a page layout, affecting the number of columns on a page, select "Layout." This is a nice feature for including a graphic or slideshow on one side of the page and the text on another. This page is an example of a 3-column layout.

For other design changes, go to the "More Actions," then "Manage Site," then "Site Appearance." Select what you want to do:

Change the site layout, which affects the headers, footers, and sidebar layout of the entire site.
Change colors and fonts, which will change all of the font colors and and allow you to add background images to your pages for a more custom look.

Note: Copying and Pasting from Word

Occasionally you may find copying and pasting from a Word document easier than developing your site pages in Google. However, you should know that the code in Word will affect the page appearance on the site. You can see all of the code when you view the HTML (see toolbar).

One way to eliminate some, if not most, of the extra coding is to copy and paste the text from Word into a RichText format (TextEdit for Macs and Notepad for PCs). Save as "Plain Text," which will eliminate the formatting, then copy and paste this text into the page on your site. Of course, you will need to redo the formatting, but the text will be there (and without the extra code that would prevent you from formatting the text as you like). However, tables and other graphics won't copy into your site from Word. You must re-create them on your site page.

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