Editing and proofreading species accounts

To find a species account to proof read or edit, use the Species Accounts menu option at the top of the page then navigate through the taxonomy to find the species you want to work on. Click on the species name to access the species account page.

When you are logged in as site editor rather than as a normal user, you have an additional option, just under the species name, to select the View or Edit pages for the account. Click on the Edit tab to open the editing facility. At the top of the page there are input boxes for the species name and author which you can simply edit if there are mistakes. Under this there is a taxonomic hierarchy section which should have been automatically filled in for you - if this is incorrect then please let Nigel know as you cannot correct it here.

Further down the page are a number of text boxes for the various sections of the species account text. Please read these and correct mistakes. There are also formatting tools in the toolbars above each box for making text bold, italic, numbered or bulleted. In particular please ensure latin names are italicised. There is also a drop down for selecting the heading style of a piece of text though that is unlikely to be required when editing species accounts as the text is already in separate sections.

To the right of the toolbar is a button letting you place images into the text. Only use this if you have images that are specific to the piece of text you are writing that should be displayed with the text, as the main images for each species are uploaded separately and appear at the top of the account. If you want to add an image, first resize the image to a size suitable for display on the web page (as a guide a half width image is 435 pixels wide). Save it as a jpg image for photos, or a png image for diagrams and other art. The file name should be all in lowercase with hyphens instead of spaces, starting with the species name and followed by one or two words describing the image. For example anthophora-plumipes-legs.jpg would be a suitable name - note that these are only guidelines but will help to ensure that the site is set up in a consistent fashion. Once your image is ready, click the Image button in the toolbar, then click the Browse Server button. This opens a file browser window defaulting to the uploaded folder on the server where you should save the file. Simply use the Upload button in the toolbar to upload your file (you don't need to create thumbnails or other image sizes as you have already resized the file), then click Insert to select it. On the Image Properties dialog which you should now be able to see, there is a box to input the alternative text. It is important that you fill this in with a text description of the image, so that users that rely on screen readers can understand the content of the image. Finally, click OK to insert the image in the text.

Near the bottom of the page is an upload button allowing you to attach an information sheet pdf file to the species account. Please also give the information sheet a readable title using the description box. Finally there is an NBN Key box below this which will be filled in automatically in future, though you can correct it here if necessary. Without this the species account will not display any maps.