Juniper Websites
Overview
The Newsletter module gives you a simple way to create online newsletters for your school. You can reuse content already published on your website, and add extra content that does not appear anywhere else.
This article covers:
- creating a newsletter and adding rows
- adding content blocks, including text, images, dividers, social media, news, calendar events, and photo albums
- previewing, saving, and publishing your newsletter
- sharing your newsletter with parents
Create a newsletter
Follow these steps to start a new newsletter.
- From the Add-ons dashboard, select the Newsletter module.
- Select Create a New Newsletter.
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Enter a Page Title for your newsletter.
Add and manage rows
Once your newsletter has a title, you can add rows of content. Each row has either one or two columns.
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Drag a row from the right-hand column into the newsletter content area.
- Hover over a row to see a set of tools that let you:
- Reorder rows by dragging them up or down. A purple line shows where the row will be placed
- Set the row colours using the paintbrush tool for the foreground colour and the paint bucket tool for the background colour
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Delete a row, including all its content
Add content to a row
Follow these steps to add content blocks to a row you have already added.
- Select the Content tab on the right-hand side to see the available content blocks.
- Choose the type of content block you want to add.
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Drag the block into the row where you want to add it
The content block types are text, image, divider, social media, news stories, calendar events, and photo album.
Add a text block
The text block lets you add text and format it, for example with bold, italics, or alignment.
- Drag the text block onto the page.
- Select the text area and type or paste in your text content.
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Use the toolbar at the top to format the text, insert hyperlinks, add images, or add templates for buttons, tables, and accordions.
Add an image block
The image block lets you fill a content block with an image.
- Drag the image block onto the page.
- Drag an image from your computer onto the block, or select Browse to choose an image from the File Manager.
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Use the toolbar at the top to set a title for the image or set its width.
Add a divider block
The divider block adds a horizontal line between two rows. You can only insert it into a row with one column.
- Drag the divider block onto an empty row.
- If you want, set the row background colour using the tools that appear when you hover over the row.
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Use the toolbar at the top to set the width and style of the line.
Add a social media block
Note: Before you add a social media block, ensure that your social media accounts have been linked to your site for sharing by an administrator.
The social media block lets you display a feed from Facebook or Instagram.
- Drag the social media block onto an empty row.
- Use the toolbar at the top to select either Facebook or Instagram.
- Choose a style. Some styles let you show images if you want.
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Set the number of posts to display.
Add news articles and blog posts
The news and blog content blocks let you pull in items already published on your website.
- Drag the block into an empty row.
- From the menu at the top of the page, choose the news or blog category to select from.
- Turn on Select Items if you want to choose specific items to pull through.
- Set the number of items to display. The section formats itself based on the number you choose.
- Select the date range.
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If you want, set a block title
If your website introduction paragraph includes formatting you want to keep, turn on Retain Formatting under the Intro Text setting. If you leave this off, the text shortens and keeps your newsletter formatting consistent, but loses formatting such as bold and italics.
Add calendar events
The calendar events block lets you pull in a series of upcoming events from your website calendar.
- Drag the events block into an empty row in your newsletter.
- From the menu at the top of the page, choose the calendar category the events will come from.
- Select the number of events to display.
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Set the date range for the events to pull from.
Add a photo album
The photo album block lets you display a set of images from a selected photo album on your website.
- Drag the photos block into an empty row in your newsletter.
- From the menu at the top of the page, select the album the images will come from.
- Set the number of images to include in the newsletter.
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Select Select Items to choose specific photos from the album to display.
Preview, save, and publish a newsletter
You can select preview at any time to check how your newsletter will look when published. From the preview window, you can:
- Select Save Draft to leave the site and return later to continue working on the newsletter
- Select Save as Template to reuse the same layout for a new newsletter later
- Select Publish to make the newsletter live so you can share it publicly
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Select Publish & Send to publish the newsletter and open the email tool to send it. This option is only available if you have purchased the email module
Share a newsletter
If you do not have the Juniper Websites email tool, once you have published your newsletter, you will need to obtain the link to share with parents.
- To obtain a direct link, find the newsletter from the list and then click 'View Online'.
- Alternatively, the easiest way to embed a list of published newsletters to any page on your site is using the Block Tool.
Tips and best practices
- Use the Block Tool to embed a list of published newsletters on any page of your site. This is the easiest way to share newsletters if you do not have the email tool
- Save your newsletter as a template if you plan to reuse the same layout in future
Next steps
After your newsletter is published, share the link with parents or embed it on your website
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