(DM-5) Using the Email Message Editor

Having looked at the different types of messages, let's now dive into the details of how to use the message editor.

Text Selection

Text is selected when it is highlighted in blue:

To select some text:

To select a single word:

To select all the text in the editor:

To deselect text:

If you start typing when text is selected, then the selected text will be replaced with what you type.

Undo Function

To undo what you have just done (typed, formatted, etc)

Text Formatting

Here is the menu bar for the message editor:

Basic Formatting Options

The main text formatting functions are similar to other editors you may have used. You will probably find it easiest to type some text and then apply the formatting.

The main formatting options can also be set by holding down the [ctrl] key and pressing a letter on the keyboard.

Here are the available options

  • [B] icon or [ctrl+b] - makes selected text bold.

  • [I] icon or [ctrl+i] - makes selected text italic.

  • [ctrl+u] - makes selected text underlined.

Changing Colour

To change the colour of the text or the background to the text:

This displays a colour palette where you can select a text and background colour for the text you have selected.

Note that you are not able to add your own colour - you can only choose from the colours shown here.

Text Layout Options

Bullet and Numbered Lists

You can create a bullet point (unordered) list of items:

To create a bullet point (unordered) list:

Or you can:

You can also create a numbered (ordered) list of items:

To create a numbered (ordered) list:

Paragraph Alignment

You can align paragraphs in different styles:

This will give you a range of alignment options:

You can use these to align a paragraph in the style indicated by the individual icon.

In order to add a link to an external web page:

Your link will now look like this:

Adding Images and Attachments

All the details of working with images and attachments are shown in lesson DM-8.

Working in Full Screen

You can edit your details in full screen mode, where the screen is cleared except for the editing area:

File Save

You can save the work that you are doing by either:

or

Note that if you are working in full screen mode, you can type ctrl-s and it will save your work but also quit full screen mode. This is normal, and you can go back into full screen mode to continue working if you choose.

Importing Text From Other Documents

The Issue

When you start out, you may find yourself wanting to import text from other documents into different messages. This can cause issues due to different formatting methods being used in the existing document editor and in the Workshop Angel editor.

Let's walk through an example of how to manage this situation, using a Word document like this:

You can see that this document includes:

  • A specific font type

  • Different font sizes

  • An image

  • Colours

  • A "Click here" link.

If you just copy this text in Word and then paste it into the message editor, you will get multiple issues come up:

  • New text that you type won't be in the same font or the same size.

  • Clicking on the link when you "view" the message will cause you to be logged out of Workshop Angel

  • The image will have disappeared

The Solution

The best way to solve this issue is to paste the words from your existing document without any formatting information, and to re-apply the formatting in Workshop Angel.

Follow these steps to remove the existing formatting:

You can see that all of the text content has been pasted but without any formatting.

If you have previously added any content into the Content - Email area:

Then to add your new content:

Summary

Wow, that was a very detailed lesson! We have seen how to use the email editor in terms of using all the different text and paragraph formatting features.

We have also seen the issues that can come up when bringing text across from other document editors, and worked through how to solve this by removing the formatting, and then re-applying it as you work in the Workshop Angel editor.

Now you are a guru in using the message editor, let's move on to how you can easily add the various shortcodes to your messages so information can be extracted from your booking database.

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