Making Democracy Work
How to upload PDF and other files like photos and how to link to or embed them. When and how to create a PDF file.
You can upload PDF files as well as .doc, .rtf., .wpd, .xls, .ppt, .zip, .txt, .tsv, and .csv. Probably way more than you will ever need! See also Creating a PDF File.And you can also upload a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif file to your LEW area yourself!! Read Upload Photos to LEW. There are also alternative ways to get image files on to your pages. See also Working with Photos and Slideshows.
Also, you cannot upload a video file, but you can link to or imbed videos on your pages.
The following is from the League of Women Voters New Media facebook page posted in Nov. 2018:As a reminder, when including images in League materials, be sure to review each image's permissions closely before incorporating it. Using photos and graphics in League materials + including social media posts and newsletters + without the appropriate permissions can open up the League to legal action or fees.
Even if your League has used photos in the past without permission, you can still be charged thousands of dollars in retroactive licensing fees. Incidents like these are not unique, and all Leagues should make efforts to avoid these types of situations. To help Leagues do so, here are some recommendations from LWVUS:
- Use your own images. You always have ownership of the photos you take + you can never go wrong with using something your League has created.
- Use images from the LWVUS Flickr site. All of these images are owned by the League of Women Voters and licensed for use by local and state Leagues.
- Use free stock photos from legitimate websites that are licensed for public use. Pay special attention to any requirements on these images. Some images require an image credit back to the website and/or photographer. Here is a list of several of these reputable free image sources.
On the site generation home page near the bottom of the page in the "Create New Page" area, click on the "Upload or Delete File" button.On the next page ("Upload a File"), in the first part of the form titled "Choose a File", you will first find the file you want to upload on your own computer, then ask LEW to upload it:
More instructions will be given in the following Q&As on how to upload the file and how to link to the new file from one or more of your pages. Also see Linking to a PDF File below and Upload Photos to LEW.
- Click on "Browse". In the popup window, find the single file you want to upload, click on it, then click on the "Open" (or similar) button. Back on the "Upload a File" page, the name of this file will be displayed next to the "Browse" button.
- Click on "Upload". This takes you to the page "Choose a Name for this file". Follow the hints and instructions on this page, then click on "Next".
- You should then see the "File Upload Complete" display. From here, you can copy the coding you can use to link to the file on a page of your choice. If the file is larger than 2.5Mb, read about file size limit.
Some Leagues (especially State Leagues) want to upload .doc files so members can download them to their own computers and then make changes to fit their local organization. They may also want to use wpd, rtf, xls formats for the same purpose.If you have made a presentation using PowerPoint that you want the public or members to see on the Web, it is best that you open the file in Powerpoint, then export it as a PDF file. But, you can upload a .ppt file (Powerpoint format) and link to it. People will have to download the file and use either Powerpoint or the PowerPoint viewer to view the file with a browser.
Do not upload files of these types because you simply want to display their contents from your LEW site. Use PDF or put the text into a LEW page instead.
Yes. You cannot upload the video to our server, but there are other sites that will let you upload a video file -- for example: YouTube or Archive.org or Cincopa. Once you've uploaded your video, you can link to the video on any of your League Easy Web pages. Or, you can copy the HTML offered by sites like YouTube and paste it onto your LEW page. This allows you to display the video and control the contents of the page.Video hosting sites often have a limit on the size or length of the video. As of this writing, YouTube has a limit of 15 minutes; Archive.org has no limit; Cincopa has a 2GB limit.
Some advice: even if a video is under the 15 minute limit, few people may want to invest that time in this day in age. You could break it down into shorter videos and put them up serially. A video of under 3 minutes is much more likely to be watched, according to current communications trends. Break up the video at logical points in the program. Create an index of content, so that people can find the section of the video they are most interested in.
For example, if you have a video of a candidate's forum, you might break it up into segments for introduction, candidate opening statements, and a segment for each question asked (include the question text on your Web page) along with all answers.
Here are instructions (if they don't make sense, please email support@lwvnet.org -- perhaps YouTube changed their interface since these were written).
- Go to the page on youtube.com that shows the video you want in the main body of the page.
- Look under the video and click on "Share".
- Click on "Embed". Check "enable privacy enhanced mode". Do use the default smallest video size of 560 pixels wide. Then do a copy (Ctrl + C) of the code highlighted in blue. You might want to enlarge the code box by dragging the lower right corner until you see all of the code. Then be sure all of the code is highlighted in blue before doing the copy.
- Edit your LEW web page and paste (Ctrl + V) the code into it at the point you would want the video to appear. Preview and test, then approve. When you first preview, if you don't see the video, click on OK, then edit the page again. If you see any html code showing on the preview page, go back to edit and enclose the pasted code with: <html>...code...</html>
- Alternatively, instead of "Embed", you can click on "Email" and get a link to the youtube.com page. Then you can link to that page. You might want to do this if you don't want the whole video image on your page (in a calendar event, for example).
Not at this time. But you can use other web services like podbean.com to host your audio file and then link to it or embed it on your LEW page.
YES!!
- Prepare .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, or .png files and upload them. Read Upload Photos to LEW for suggestions and instructions.
- Embed photo from Picasa.
1. Album must be at least available to anyone with a link.
2. Open photo you want to have on your site. In the right column, click on "Link to this photo".
3. Select size of image you want.
4. Check the box "Image only (no link)
5. Copy "Embed" code
6. Paste into an <img..> command in place of the * below:<img src="*">
See also Working with Photos and Slideshows.
We strongly recommend using the special LEW <image-side/photoname.jpg> command. However, you may also use the HTML "img" command. An example:<img src="files/photo.jpg" width="260" height="234" alt="your photo caption" border="1" vspace="10" hspace="10" align="right" />
Be sure the command is all on one "line" -- it can wrap, but it cannot have extra characters in it that might have been inserted by your email program. If your email program broke up the command so that it appeared on separate lines in the message without wrapping, notice where your email program broke the lines. After pasting the lines into LEW, you have to use the delete key to remove all blanks at the point where the new line was forced, then insert a single blank space. It's tricky because the "new line characters" show up as blanks!
You cannot change the first bunch of parameters (i.e. src=, width=, and height=), but you can/should change the last five.
alt="your photo caption". Put a word description of the photo. This will show up when you place your mouse pointer over the photo in some browsers. This is also used by low-sighted people, so it should have a description that makes sense to someone who can't see the photo.
align="right". This will force the photo to the right side of the page and words below the photo on your page will "wrap around it on the left. You could say align="left" to put the photo on the left with words on the right. Or you could omit the entire "align=xxx". If you want the photo in the center of the page with no word wrapping, put <div align=center> before the <img ..> command and </div> after it. See more hints about alignment below.
hspace will reserve a little horizontal space (left and right) beside the photo. 10 pixels isn't very much. You can just play with it to see what you like.
vspace will reserve a little vertical space (above and below) the photo.
border adds a black line around the photo. If you want a thicker line, change the 1 to 2 (or 3). Or 0 for no line.
Some tips on positioning photos and words on your page:
If you want your image to be "clickable", you need to tell the browser what page to display when someone clicks. This must be done with real HTML commands like this:
- If you want a photo to appear on the left or the right of several sentences, use align="left" or align="right" in the command. And then place the img command immediately before the words you want to wrap on the right or left -- without a blank line in between. You might want to add a few <br> commands before the sentence(s) to force them down toward the middle of the photo. If there are words or page elements following that you do not want to be wrapped, then insert <br clear="all"> at the point you want the wrapping to stop.
- If you want the photos to appear one after the other on the same "line", do not include an "align" value and do not include a blank line in between the <img..> commands.
- Likewise, if you do want a 2nd photo to appear under the 1st one, do include a blank line in between the <img...> commands.
- If you want the photo to have a caption just under it, the simplest way is not to include an align value and to put a blank line after the photo and before the caption. This works when you want one photo on a "line".
<a href="http://lwv.org/"><img ....></a>
The <a href=""> contains the web page address that you want the browser to display when someone clicks on the image. To tell the browser to open that page in a new window or tab, do:
<a href="http://lwv.org/" target="_blank"><img ....></a>
Tell the browser where to stop drawing the link by writing </a>. See Graphics You Can Use for several examples.
Yes. Please see Graphics You Can Use.
No.
Yes. The "soft" limit is 2.5MB on a single file. (There is no limit to the size of an image). There are two major problems with large files:
1. Your users may lose patience while trying to read them.
2. It may cost lwvnet.org real money if very large amounts of data are transferred from our server to users.
If you attempt to upload a larger file, you will receive a warning message. If you wish, you may request that the file be uploaded anyway by checking the box "Request permission or help to use this file". After specifying the name of the file, when you click on "Next>>", an automatic email message is sent to support@lwvnet.org. You may link to it immediately.
Usually within 24 hours, Support may look at your file and offer suggestions for making it smaller and/or other alternatives. We will never stop you from publishing something that your League has produced.
If another organization, League or non-League, has published the file, you should be linking to their copy.
The most common reason for very large PDF files is the inclusion of graphic files or photos that are print resolution (perhaps 300 dpi). When displaying the contents of the file on the Web, the resolution need be only 72 dpi (dots or "pixels" per inch).To reduce the size of your file, you can (1) use a utility to make it smaller or (2) ask the person who created the file to try to make it smaller.
- There are many programs that have an option to reduce the size of a given PDF file like Adobe Acrobat (not Reader). There is a free online service which seems to work well (as of this writing) called smallpdf.com. Just upload the file using their site, then they will compress it for you to download and use.
The PDF995 suite of tools has a program called PDFedit995 which will reduce the size of PDF files with its option "Web View".
- First open the file with the program that created it (Word, Publisher, Quark, etc.). Look for the option to save this file as a PDF file -- probably "Save as..." or "Export..". After saying you want it saved in PDF format, look for an option for "web publishing" or something about making the file smaller.
Some PDF creation programs have an option to specify or to reduce output resolution of all graphic files or photos. For example:
- Microsoft Word or Powerpoint (2007). From the icon in the upper left corner, select "Save As", then "PDF or XPS". In the popup window under "Optimize for", be sure to click on "Minimum size (publishing online).
- Microsoft Publisher (2007). Select: File -> Publish as PDF... Near the bottom of the window, you see "Optimize for:" and a "Change" button. If it says "High quality printing", click on "Change" and select either "Standard" or "Minimum quality".
- PDF995. When you select "Print" from whatever program you are using to create the file, select "Properties" next to the PDF995 printer selection. Then "Paper/Quality" -> "Advanced" > Graphic "Print Quality". Select 72dpi as the print quality. (Older versions of PDF995 may or may not have this option).
We have heard that on a Mac, you can open a PDF in "Preview", and it will let you do a "save as". You can save as another file name in PDF format after selecting an option to compress the file size using a filter. You might even try this more than once.
Depending on the number of photos you have, you might process each of them to reduce their resolution and then put them back into the document and recreate the PDF file.
Another reason for large PDF files is the use of several different non-standard fonts. This might result in the inclusion of the font definitions within your PDF file.
A third reason is that your file was created by scanning a paper copy. Just don't do that unless there is no other choice!
There are several ways to see the files you have uploaded that are not images. All are stored in your "files" directory.
To see all images you have uploaded:
- On any form page where you are editing a page, you will see a list of all files you currently have in your "file" area under "List of files for linking and images to embed".
- You can also see the list by using your browser to display the filenames in your area called "files". Click on "Open released pages in new window", go to the "address" or "URL" input box, and add "files" just after the last /. That is: http://lwvyourleague.org/files.
- Click on "Upload/Delete File", then in the area "Manage Uploaded Files/Images", click on the link "files directory".
- On any form page where you are editing a page, you will see a list of all images you currently have in your "image-here" area under "List of files for linking and images to embed".
- Click on "Upload/Delete File", then in the area "Manage Uploaded Files/Images", click on the link "images2".
PDF is the format used by the Adobe Acrobat Reader and is one of the common formats used on the Internet. It is generally created from an application like Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Microsoft Excel, etc. The advantage of the PDF format is that the display on the screen is identical to the printed page output by the application, whereas the more common HTML format often changes the appearance of the information significantly from the original application.
PDF files are best when you want the user to print exactly what you have prepared. It would be perfect for a flyer or a printed form, for example. Many Leagues publish their VOTER in PDF format. Remember that some people may never download the Acrobat Reader program, so they will never see the file. But we suspect this is becoming more rare as time goes on. Also sight-impaired people cannot read it.
Many word processing and publishing programs have the ability to create a PDF file or to export a document into a PDF file. For more detail about using these programs, see How do I make my PDF smaller?If your program does not have that ability, then you could use Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at no cost from www.adobe.com. However, the full Adobe Acrobat, which creates PDF files, is not free. The current version costs several hundred dollars.
Alternatively, there is another option that will create simple PDF files that are adequate for many applications. This Windows-only software, called PDF995, can be used at no charge or, to avoid pop-up ads when you run it, you can pay $9.95 for it. Fortunately, the free version does not insert any ads into the PDF file it creates.
If you need the ability to create PDF files described in the question above, this software is available from www.pdf995.com. Just follow the instructions on their website. It is very quick and easy to install (but it does require being able to handle a .ZIP file).
PDF995 is very simple to use. Once it has been installed, each application's Print menu will include a printer called PDF995. When you are ready to produce a PDF file, you select the PDF995 "printer" and print just as if you were printing paper. You will be asked for the folder and file name for the PDF file.If the output pages are in reverse order in the PDF file (page 1 is the last page), you need to toggle the setting in your Print menu that reverses the page order. For Microsoft Word, for instance, in the Print menu you select Options and then toggle the "Reverse print order" setting.
It should work with any Windows application that allows you to select the printer for the output. We have tested it with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher) and other applications (WordPerfect, Print Shop, Paint Shop) with good results.
If you use the "number of pages" option in a Microsoft Word 2000 document header or footer, it does not appear correctly in the PDF file. So a 3-page document which should have "Page 1 of 3," "Page 2 of 3," and "Page 3 of 3" in the footers will produce a PDF file with footers which actually say "Page 1 of 1," "Page 2 of 2," and "Page 3 of 3." (Word 2003 does not have this problem).The test with WordPerfect resulted in some of the characters not being correctly rendered in the PDF file. Go to Start - settings - printers. Select the pdf995 printer and right click to give you the option of opening the Properties. Go to "Font". Select the first option rather than the 2nd (or 3rd). Then it should create a good PDF file.
These problems appear to be within the word processing program rather than in PDF995. Other versions of the programs may give different results.
Great thanks to Mary Pickett, Webmaster of LWV Oakland Area, Michigan, who also wrote the above FAQ items for all of the rest of us!!
Your PDF files will be stored in a directory on your site named "files". In order for anyone to see the file, you must create a link to the file from one or more of your LEW pages and the person must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on his computer.You will create a link to a PDF file using the same syntax as you would for a link to a page (see FAQ about linking) except you need to refer to the file in the "files" directory as:
"link text"<files/myfile.pdf>
For your convenience, all files in the "files" directory are listed by name in the right hand column of each page you edit.
You may use any words you want instead of 'link text', but they must have double quotes around them. The characters between the <> will be exactly as above, except 'myfile.pdf' will be the exact file name stored in the "files" directory. For your convenience, the list of files are always displayed in the right-hand column of the form you use to edit a page. Just copy and paste!
Let's assume you are creating a page on your Web site called "Our Newsletter" or "The VOTER" -- a page where you intend to lead people to your VOTER. You also decide that you will highlight the most current VOTER, but will offer the older ones in an archive.
Create a new page putting it in its desired place within the table of contents. On this new page you can put any text you wish, for example:
We publish our newsletter, The VOTER, 10 times a year. Read our "April VOTER"<files/april2003voter.pdf> online. Older issues are available: * "March 2003"<+files/march2003voter.pdf> * "February 2003"<+files/feb03voter.pdf>.This will display as:
We publish our newsletter, The VOTER, 10 times a year. Read our April VOTER online. Older issues are available:
The links above will not work in this example.
Yes. Use the little plus sign "+" in front of the file to link to:
We recommend that you use the + for all PDF files to make it easier for people to get back to your web site.
- "February 2003"<+files/feb03voter.pdf>.
Simply upload a new file of exactly the same name which will replace the old one. Any link will then automatically point to the new file.
- On your site generation home page, in the area headed "Create a New Page" (near the bottom), click on "Upload or Delete File".
- Then on the "Upload a File" page in the section titled "Manage Uploaded Files/Images", click on "Select Files to Delete".
- Find the name of the file(s) you wish to delete and click on the checkbox in front of the name(s). Then click on "Process Delete Files".
- If you selected just one file, you will be asked if you want to redirect accesses to a replacement file. If you believe pages on other websites are linking directly to the file you are about to delete and you have already uploaded a replacement file with a different name, then follow the instructions on the form to handle this situation. This would be very rare because normally if you upload a replacement file, you would always upload it with the same name as the older file which results in the new file replacing the old.
- If all is OK, then click on "Confirm Delete" (a second chance in case you clicked on the wrong file name) and the file(s) will completely disappear.
Go to your site generation home page and, near the bottom of the page, click on "Update or Delete File". Then:
- On the next page in the "Manage Uploaded Files/Images" section, click on "Select Images to Delete".
- On this page see a listing of all of your images including the file name, a small version of the image, the actual stored size of the image in pixels and in bytes. You may check as many images as you like, then click on "Process Delete images".
- After verifying you really want to delete the image files listed, click on "Confirm Delete".
Alternate text (or "alt text") can be entered when you upload a file. The value is used by sight-impaired people who use screen-reader programs to help them "see" things on the screen. These programs "read" the words you put into "alt text" when the person hovers a mouse over an image.To display and then change the text values of your images:
- On the site generation home page and, near the bottom of the page, click on "Update or Delete File"
- On the next page in the "Manage Uploaded Files/Images" section, click on "Edit Image Alt Text"
- On this page see a listing of all of your images including the file name, a small version of the image, the actual stored size of the image in pixels and in bytes -- and the current value (if any) of Alt Text. You may change the values of the alt text on as many images as you like, then click on "Change Alt Text".