Laying out a template

Admins only

The template editor is where you lay out a bulletin or a web page. You drag blocks onto the page and choose what each one shows. Each time you make a bulletin, Scriblet fills them from your calendar.

It’s easiest on a computer, because the editor needs a wide screen.

1. Start a template

In the menu, choose Templates, then New template.
Give it a Name, choose what it’s for and what it covers, and choose Create. See Creating a template.

To open a template you’ve already made, choose its name or Edit.

2. Find your way around

The template editor, with four numbered parts: 1 the bar along the top, 2 Blocks on the left, 3 the page in the middle, and 4 the selected block’s settings on the right.

The bar along the top: the template’s name, its panels, the dates it shows, Save and Make document.
Blocks: the pieces you can put on the page. Outline, below it, lists what’s on the page now.
The page: what the panel will look like, filled from your calendar.
Settings: what the block you’ve selected shows.

Templates, at the top left, takes you back to your templates.

3. Choose a panel and the dates

The bar along the top: Templates / Weekly bulletin, the four panel tabs, Covers, Showing, the fit meter, Save and Make document.

Panels: a printed bulletin has a tab for each panel, like Inside left and Front cover. Choose one to work on it. The editor opens on Inside left.
Covers: One date, A date range or A month. You can change it here.
Showing: the dates the page is filled with. Days with something on the calendar are marked. Make document uses these dates too.
The fit meter, like “Panel 35% full”, shows how full the panel is. It’s only on printed bulletins.

4. Add a block

Find the block under Blocks. Each one shows a small preview. Point at it to see what it’s for.
Drag it onto the page. A blue line shows where it will go.
Let go.

Dragging the Heading block from Blocks onto the page. A blue line on the page shows where it will go.

Printed bulletins and web pages have different blocks. For example, a web page has Who’s serving where a printed bulletin has Roster lines.

5. Choose what a block shows

Click a block on the page to select it. Its settings open on the right.

A new Heading block on the front cover. On the right, its settings: Heading, with “Prayer requests” typed in, Small line under it, and Look.

Words you type in a setting, like a heading, are the same every time.

Anything that can come from the calendar has three choices:

Nothing.
Type text… for words that are the same every time.
From the schedule to fill it from the calendar each time. Choose what goes there from the list. Each line shows what it is for the dates you’re showing, or “nothing this week”.

The settings for the Sermon line of an Order of service. Under “What goes in the middle?”, From the schedule is chosen, with a list of what’s on the calendar.

A block with several lines, like Order of service, lists them under Items. Choose one to open its settings.

Once a block is selected, you can also click its words on the page and type over them. Words that come from the calendar open a menu to change the calendar instead. See Changing something.

6. Move, copy or remove a block

A selected block shows a small bar with its name, a copy button (Duplicate) and a bin (Delete).

The Order of service block selected on the page, with a dark bar showing its name, the Duplicate button and the Delete button.

To move a block, drag it to its new place on the page.
Delete doesn’t ask first. To bring a block back, choose undo, the curved arrow at the top right.
Outline lists the blocks on this panel, in order. Choose one to select it.

Outline, listing the blocks on the panel: Header box, Order of service, Roster lines and Roster row.

7. Put blocks side by side

A Side by side block has two or three columns. Drag other blocks into its columns, like a QR code beside the text it belongs to.

A Side by side can’t go inside another one.
On a web page, the columns stack on a phone.

8. Check that it fits

On a printed bulletin, watch the fit meter. If the panel is too full, it says “will not print”. Point at it to see which words run past the edge. Shorten the words, or remove or change a block, until it fits. A bulletin that doesn’t fit can’t be made.

On a web page, the buttons above the page show it on a Desktop, a Phone or a phone turned sideways. If a block is too wide, the bar along the top says so, like “Table is 40px too wide on Phone”.

A web page shown on a phone, with the Desktop, Phone and Phone sideways buttons above it.

9. Save

Choose Save. The bar says “Unsaved changes” until you do, then “Saved”.

Save before you leave. Going back to Templates, or anywhere else in the console, doesn’t warn you, and unsaved changes are lost.
Make document waits until you’ve saved, because it’s made from the template as saved.
If someone else saved it while you were working, Scriblet says “Someone else saved this template after you opened it.” Load their version shows theirs, and your unsaved changes are lost.

10. Make it

Choose Make document, or Make page for a web page. See Making a bulletin or Making a page.

Renaming or deleting a template

To rename it, change its name at the top left of the editor, then Save.
To delete it, choose the bin beside it on Templates, then Delete. It can’t be undone.