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general tips and tricks for office live

 

Office Live tips and tricks that I have found useful when working with the OL site designer.

 

right clicking

Right clicking on tables, modules, highlighted text, images or even anywhere on the page will bring up a menu of options.

 

tell a friend

A simple hyperlink that opens the visitors default email with a link to your website.  You can use a text link or an image (my send a link to the right is done this way).

 

  Highlight the text or click on the image you want to link.

  Click on Hyperlink in the page editor and select 'email'.

  In the text area for Link type:  

    ?Subject=what you want the subject of the email to say&body=www.yoursite.com

  To leave the subject area blank and link to a particular page:

    ?body=www.yoursite.com/yourpage.aspx

 

save as template

The Advanced Design Features allow you to save a page as a template.  Once saved, when you create a new page, your template page will be listed as a choice to use.  Links, images, tables...everything on that page will be saved and will be on the new page.  The Advanced Design Features can be activated in Page Manager under Site Actions.  Once activated, Save as Template will be listed in Page Manager in the options for each page.

 

change link color

A simple way to change the text color of a link, useful if you want some links on a page to be a different color from the default color.  The text will change color but the link will no longer change color on hover or when visited.  Other link effects that have been changed using CSS, underline, background color still seem to work.

 

  Highlight the text link you want to change.

  Click on the Font color selector ( A ) and select a color.

  Sometimes it is resistant to change.  In that case, try placing the cursor directly after

    the link and hit the spacebar to add a space.  Highlight the link  and the extra space

    then change the color.  You can remove the extra space after it is changed.

 

unlink a text link

An easy way to unlink the text is to place your cursor directly after the link| and hit the backspace key, once.  Useful if you don't want to delete the text.  This will sometimes work if you happen to be infected with link contagion (a large portion of your page suddenly being linked).  Get to the very last part that is linked, put your cursor right after the last linked bit and hit backspace once.

 

remove the header, footer and/or navigation

How to remove one, two or all three from a page.  The Advanced Design Features need to be activated first (Page Manager > Site Options).

 

  In the Page Editor, click on Page Properties.

  Uncheck which ones you want to remove from that page. 

  They can be put back at a later time if you change your mind by going back and

    rechecking the boxes. 

  

remove the live search bar and the powered by olsb logo

Removing the Live Search Bar has moved from it's previous location and now we can also remove the OLSB Logo.  Personally, I feel the logo at the bottom is nice to leave in since Microsoft gave me all this free stuff.

 

  In Site Designer, click on Options.

  Where it says Display, uncheck the ones you want removed. 

 

special characters

How to add © , ® and other special characters.

 

  In your computer go to Programs > Accesories > System Tools > Character Map

   Select and copy the character you want. 

Paste onto your page. (they don't all work)

  You can also paste them in the Header and Footer text in Site Designer.

 

bulleted lists

For more control over the placement and style of bullets then the Office Live editor allows, use a bullet from the Character Map.

 

  Paste the bullet on your page.

  Hit the space bar to give some space between the bullet and the text.

  If you have more than one line of text, you can hit the enter key and then the space

    bar to line the text up with the row above.

  This gives you more design and color options, the bullet color can be changed by

    highlighting it and using the font color selector ( A ).

 

moving text, images or tables

Text, images, modules and tables can be dragged to a new place on your page.  This is sometimes easier than cutting and pasting and handy if you want to move something while keeping something else copied on your clipboard.

 

  Click on or highlight what you want to move.

  With the pointer over it click and hold down the left mouse button and move it until

    the cursor is where you want to place your element.

  Release the mouse button.

  This is sometimes finicky when moving tables and modules if you want it exactly in a

    particular place.  Then it may be easier to cut and paste it where you want it.

 

back to top of page

Select the text or image that you want to have work to bring you to the top of the page.  Click on hyperlink, choose website and type # for the address.  That's it!  Try it out - click on the taped on arrow below and see what happens.

 

Uploading and Linking to a PDF document

The directions are in the pdf document.

 

I hope you find these tips and tricks useful.  If you have a tip that would be helpful to other Office Live users you can share it on the Share a Tip page.