The same tool that makes edits also writes posts. There is nothing to install and nothing to learn beyond the buttons in front of you. Open your site, sign in with your email code and your passkey, and choose Dashboard in the bar in the lower right. The Dashboard is its own page, with everything your site keeps listed down the left: Blogs is there under whatever name your site gives its posts (on this site, Insights). If you have not opened the tool before, How to make edits on an Avistra website shows the sign-in.
Writing and changing posts needs your passkey. Signed in with only the emailed code, you can read the list but not change anything.
Open Blogs
Choose Dashboard in the bar, then Blogs on the left. It lists every post and where it stands: On the site, Waiting on us, Draft, or Archived. New post, at the top, starts a fresh one. Edit opens one you have already written. Take it off the site removes a post from the site but keeps it, so Put it back on the site is one click.
Write it the way it will read
Give the post a title, then write in the box below it. What you see in the box is how the post will read on the site. Paste from anywhere, a Word document, an email, a note on your phone, and the structure comes with it while the stray formatting is cleaned up. The site's own type and colors are applied for you, so a post always looks like the rest of the site.
Headings, lists and the rest
The row of buttons above the box does the shaping. Put the cursor on a line, or select a few lines, and press one:
- Heading makes a section title. Subheading makes the smaller title under it.
- List turns the lines into bullet points. Numbered turns them into steps in order.
- B and I make words bold or italic. Quote sets a passage apart. Link asks where it should go.
- Plain takes any of that off again and returns the line to ordinary text.
Pictures, video and files
Picture puts a photo where the cursor is. Choose the file, then describe it in a few words when asked; that description is read aloud to anyone who cannot see the picture. A large photo from a phone is shrunk to a size a web page needs, so there is nothing to prepare. A caption can be typed underneath. Video takes a YouTube or Vimeo link and embeds it on the page, or a short clip of your own. File attaches a PDF, shown as a download link.
A drawing or something made elsewhere
The last button on the row is for markup you already have: an SVG drawing, a chart from a tool that gives you the code, a small piece of HTML. Press it, paste the code in, and name it in a few words. What you see in the writing box is a small card with that name on it, not the whole thing, so a long piece of code does not fill the box; click the card whenever you want the code back, and the panel shows it with a preview of how it looks. On the page it is drawn full size, animation and all.
The check that runs on everything else runs on this too. Scripts, forms, and anything that would load from another website are taken out before the page is shown, and a stylesheet inside a drawing is kept to that drawing, so it can never change how the rest of the page looks.
Summary, featured image and web address
Below the words are a few small things. The summary is one line shown on the Insights page and in search results; left empty, the first sentence of the post is used. The featured image is the picture on the Insights page and at the top of the post, with a line describing what it shows; it can come from a picture already on the site, like every other picture in the post. How to add pictures, video and files to a post covers that. The web address is made from the title, and you can change it whenever you like, even after the post is published: the old address keeps working and sends anyone who uses it to the new one.
Draft or submit
Draft post keeps it for later. Nobody sees a draft, and it is there in the list when you come back. Submit post sends it. Every post is checked over before it goes out, and a routine one is on the site within a few minutes. One that needs a closer look comes to us first and shows as Waiting on us in the list; we read it and let you know by email.
Changing a post later
Choose Dashboard, then Blogs on the left, then Edit next to the post. Changes to a published post go through the same check, and the published version stays exactly as it is until the new one is through. Take it off the site removes a post from the site; Put it back on the site brings it back.
And once a post is on the site, it is a page like any other. Make an edit works on it the same way: point at a word that should be different, say what it should say, and a small change is made on the spot.
If you get stuck
Support request, in the same bar, sends us a question about your site, and How to submit a support request on an Avistra website shows how. Or reply to any email from us. Posts are part of the plan, so ask for what you need.