My Publications » Software Tutorials » Using Other Software with Contribute

Two toolbars are referred to throughout this tutorial:

Primary toolbar
Located in the Contribute menu bar

Toolbar
Located on the floating dialog box
This toolbar changes according to the current activity

Using Dreamweaver, Word, Excel, or a PDF Document

This section discusses using Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Word and Excel to interact with Contribute as well as working with PDF files.

Using Word or Excel

Using Word or Excel with Contribute, you can add and/or link with a Word or Excel document. Even more efficiently, Word uses a template and can publish without even opening Contribute.

Insert an Office document

Either convert the document to a PDF (see PDF documents below) or get rid of the Word formatting by:

  1. Opening Notepad (Windows) or Text Edit (Macintosh)
  2. Copying text from a Word document
  3. Pasting it into Notepad or Text Edit
    1. Gets rid of the Word formatting
  4. Now, copy the text from Notepad or Text Edit
  5. Paste it into the Contribute draft

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PDF documents

A PDF document can be included by:

  • Inserting a link to a PDF document
  • Inserting/embedding an entire PDF document

    Figure 27. Path to follow to insert or embed a PDF document: Insert > PDF Document.
    1. Choose Insert (primary toolbar), Figure 27
    2. Choose PDF Document


    • Figure 28. Choosing a PDF document from My Documents (Windows) or, in this case, Documents (Macintosh).
  • Choose your PDF file, Figure 28


    • Figure 29. In this example, the Administrator does not want anyone to embed the actual document.
  • A dialog box will pop up asking if this is to be a(n):
    • Link
    • Actual document
      1. Click Remember this setting… if all/most of your documents will be a Link or an Actual document


    • Figure 30. The site administrator can prevent whole PDF documents from being embedded on the website.
  • If you choose Actual document, a warning dialog box will pop up
    1. You may want to insert the file and,
    2. Provide a link to an external PDF file in case something goes wrong—doing this retains accessibility

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Editing the homepage

The original homepage is not editable:

  1. Click the Edit Page button (toolbar)
  2. A draft version of the homepage will be created
  3. Choose Save for Later to save any changes on this draft version

Saving your new files

As you work, save your file using the Save for Later button (toolbar)

  • Save for Later does not publish the page; it simply saves the draft

Get rid of a file by choosing Discard Draft (toolbar)

All page files are saved with the file extension used with the original file, in this case, .shtml.

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Questions about some of the terminology used in this tutorial? Get more information (definitions and links) on key computer terms by going to our Glossary of Terms Relating to Art, Computer, Therapy ++.

Kathy Davie is an artist, educator, and author of the arts marketing series, Your Portfolio & You, aimed at helping artists survive (and thrive) at the business of being an artist.

As a self-taught artist, Kathy was frustrated by the lack of information on taking her career to a more professional level while meeting legal guidelines and learning about legal hiccups. Her drive for information fueled her to interview numerous professionals and compiled the information into a monthly news column. She now leads workshops and is converting the news columns into this continuing series of how-to books.

Kathy has a BS in Technical Writing & Editing with minors in Digital Media and History from Metropolitan State College, Denver, CO and is the author of Accounting for the SMALL Businessperson, How Copyright Applies to the Artist, the Buyer, the Employer/e, the Sold Artwork, Dealing with Photographs, Slides, Digital Images, and Surviving the Outdoor Arts Festival.

Visit her writing or arts websites or reach her by email.