IOM3 microsites – basic editing instructions

Logging in

  1. Click "log in" at the top right of any page
  2. Your username is your surname
  3. Your password (unless you've changed it) is your pin number
  4. Click "log in"
  5. When you have been logged in the message "You are logged in" will appear at the top right of the page

All the instructions below assume you have logged in first

Editing pages

  1. Find the page you want to edit on your microsite e.g. "Contact us"
  2. Click the "edit" tab
  3. Make your edits
  4. Click "submit"
  5. Review your edits to make sure they look OK (also check any links to ensure they go to the right website etc)
  6. Need more editing? Go back to step 2 and repeat as necessary

Editing iedits

Click "inline edit" at the bottom of the iedit you want to change and follow steps 3-6 in "editing pages" above

Adding links

When editing:

  1. Type your link text – make it a call to action e.g. "Read full details", "Download the flyer"
  2. Highlight your link text
  3. Click on "link" icon in the rich text toolbar (looks like a chain) - the "insert/edit link" popup box opens
  4. In the "Link URL" box enter the URL you want to link to
  5. If linking to an external website select "open in new window" from the "target" dropdown – otherwise proceed to next step
  6. Click "insert"
  7. Test your link works – if in Firefox you can CTRL/click on the link while still in edit mode and it will open in a new tab. In other browsers submit your page and click the link as normal
  8. If the link needs editing, edit your page again, highlight your whole link text, click the link icon and make your changes. If you want to remove the link altogether highlight your whole link text and click the "broken link" icon.

Pasting from Word

NEVER paste any text into the CMS straight from MS Word because doing so can bring massive amounts of (otherwise invisible) formatting markup into your web page. Instead either copy your Word text and paste into the CMS using the "paste from Word" icon, or copy from Word, paste into MS Notepad (or equivalent basic text editor), copy the text from Notepad, then paste into the CMS – this will strip out all formatting. In either case you can manually add any formatting you need (e.g. bold, italic) afterwards.

Adding images

When editing, click the "camera" icon. Then:

To use an existing image (if any):

  1. click on the image
  2. edit the title, description (etc) values as required
  3. click insert

To add a new image do as follows, but please see the guidelines on image sizing below first:

  1. click "upload"
  2. in "title" field type a title for your image
  3. click "browse"
  4. look on your computer for the image to upload
  5. click "submit"
  6. you can now preview the image – change any values as required e.g. you can remove the title if you don't want this to display
  7. click "insert"

Image size guidelines: Don't upload images straight from your digital camera – the file size will be huge. For web purposes you need the file size as small as possible – you can get perfectly good results with a file of 10k. To reduce the file size quickly the best resource is – simply upload the original image from your computer, select the size/resolution you require and click "reduce photo" – this will give you a reduced file you can download (right-click and save as). Sometimes however reducephoto is offline – in this situation other free websites such as can help, or you can download free image editing software such as for more sophisticated editing.

Always be sure you have permission to use any images you add to the site.

Adding a news item

  1. Go to
  2. Use a meaningful headline including key words
  3. "Publish to" only microsites identified with a relevant subject noun e.g. "Ceramics", "Light metals" – do not select magazine sites, local society sites or anything you're not sure what it is
  4. Type a manual abstract if you don't want the system to create one automatically
  5. Select as many relevant subject categories as necessary
  6. "Published" status will default to unticked – only tick this box if you are happy for your item to be live on the web
  7. "Send out as a content alert" will default to ticked – untick this if you are making lots of small edits otherwise users will receive email notifications for all your little edits
  8. When done click "submit"
  9. To edit your news item go to your news item, click "edit", make changes and submit – please observe the above points especially 6 and 7.

Adding an event

  1. Go to
  2. Use a helpful title including key words
  3. "Publish to" only microsites identified with a relevant subject noun e.g. "Ceramics", "Light metals" – do not select magazine sites, local society sites or anything you're not sure what it is
  4. Always fill in some info in the short description as this is often the first thing users see about your event. For local society events please state the name of the society and the type of event e.g. "MinSouth evening lecture", "West of England Packaging Society industrial visit".
  5. In the case of any events which are organised or supported by the Institute or its technical communities, this must be stated in italics at the top of the full event description, eg Organised by the Iron and Steel Society of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Miningor Supported by the Energy Materials Group of IOM3.
  6. If your event already has its own website put a link to that site in "link for more information" – there's no need to try to reproduce all the event info on the IOM3 site
  7. Under categories, select "event (non training)", a relevant event type category and as many subject categories as are relevant
  8. Organiser type for events run by IOM3 technical communities is "IOM3/IOM Communications"
  9. Make sure you've filled in all mandatory fields – the rest can be left blank if necessary
  1. "Published" status will default to unticked – only tick this box if you are happy for your item to be live on the web
  2. "Send out as a content alert" will default to ticked – untick this if you are making lots of small edits otherwise users will receive email notifications for all your little edits
  3. When done click "submit"
  4. To edit your event go to your event, click "edit", make changes and submit – please observe the above points especially 10 and 11.

Adding documents

Before you start – ensure the file(s) you want to add have a useful filename, as this will appear in full on your web page when finished, and are saved on your local computer (e.g. desktop) NOT a network drive.

Find the page you want to add the document to, then:

  1. Click the "edit" tab
  2. Scroll down to the bottom to "downloadable documents" – click this if necessary to expand it
  3. Under "attach new file" click "browse"
  4. Browse on your computer for the file you want to add, and select
  5. Click "attach"
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 to add each new document
  7. Submit the page when finished

To delete documents:

  1. Click the "edit" tab on the required page
  2. Scroll down to the bottom to "downloadable documents"
  3. Untick "list" and tick "delete" adjacent to the file(s) you want to delete
  4. Submit the page

NB You can also "unlist" any documents without deleting them, e.g. if you think you might want to put them back on the page at a later date, or if you want to link them from another page – to do this simply untick "list" next to the document(s) in question and submit the page. To relist the documents just tick the necessary boxes again, then submit.

GENERAL TIPS

Browser If possible use Mozilla Firefox to view and edit the site. Internet Explorer can display some features poorly.

Where is my content? For a full list of all the news, events and images you have added go to "My profile" then "My contributions".

Seeing "code"? If you're editing any content (especially iedits) and you see "code" (i.e. html markup such as <a href> <p> <em> etc) don't panic, simply click the "enable rich text" link below the box you're editing (this link may be labelled "disable rich text" but it does the same thing – it just toggles between rich text and plain text views of the content).

Published or not? Make sure the "published" box is ticked if you want content to be available to normal users. Remember that you can see your own content even if it is unpublished. To check the published status of a news item or event check in "my contributions" under "my profile". To check the status of a static page you need to edit it then scroll down to see whether the "published" box is ticked or not.

Not displaying right? If your content doesn't look right try clicking "input format" underneath the box you are editing and changing this to "Full HTML"

Style points Please list dates without ordinals i.e. 12 November instead of 12th November. Please refer to IOM3 as IOM3, not as IOMMM, IOM, IoM, or with a superscript 3 i.e. IOM. If using our full name please refer to The Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and not just The Institute of Materials. A full style guide can be downloaded from

Need more help?If you have time go to - the answer to your problem/question may be in this general help page. Otherwise go to and download the CMS/Site Editing Instructions - full instructions for all editing tasks are in there. Failing those options contact Richard Cooper for support on or 020 7451 7346.

Last updated 03/11/10page 1