Importing or copying content from other formats
A distinction should be made between content to be displayed directly within Firefly pages, and content which is to be made available by download from a Firefly page and therefore best left in its original file format. If you upload and link to the file in its original format, the import process may be much quicker but the file will not appear within the web browser and the viewer will need to have the correct application (e.g. Microsoft Word) to view the file.All the advice on this page refers to the transfer of content from
other file formats into Firefly pages. Files which are to be
made available for download in their original file format should be
copied to the Resources area and linked from there.
Adding content from a Word document
Often, much of the content which has been added to Firefly pages originated from a Word document. The manner in which Word content should be imported into Firefly depends on the nature of the original document. The following guidelines should help you decide on the most appropriate method:
- If the original Word document has a straightforward layout of text and/or tables without embedded graphics), you should simply copy the selected text and paste it directly into Firefly.
- Unless it is essential to preserve all the formatting of the original document, strip out unnecessary hidden code by using the Clean up Formatting tool.
- If the original Word document contains embedded graphics, it must be imported from the Resources area after saving the file as Web Page, Filtered (this used to be called Compact HTML).
- If the original Word document is too rich with formatting, you may find that the Firefly version is hard to amend, even after using the Clean up Formatting tool. In this case, you should save the Word document as a text file which you can then copy and paste into Firefly without any formatting at all. The Firefly page is then formatted using Firefly's own editing tools.
Overall, the strongest recommendation is to save the document as a text file first and then copy and paste the text into the Firefly editor. The time spent reformatting text often more than compensates for time spent in overcoming hidden code within content copied directly from formatted text.
Blocks of cells can be selected, copied and pasted from Excel into Firefly in the usual way. The cells then appear as a table in Firefly. which may be more easily edited if the Clean up Formatting tool is used first.
Adding content from a web page (HTML document)
Text from any web page, be it on the internet or intranet, whether created using a web page editor such as Dreamweaver or not, can be copied and pasted into Firefly just as if from a Word document, with the added bonus that all the formatting will often be preserved.
Graphics must be handled separately (as for Word documents) and it is essential that web pages which do include graphics are imported, rather than copied and pasted by saving the web page into the Resources area and using Tools > Import/Export > Import linked HTML pages.
Transferring data from a PDF file into a Firefly page
There are several advantages in transferring content from a pdf original (e.g. an exam board specification) into a Firefly page and the effort involved is usually outweighed by the benefits gained.
Advantages
- the Firefly page(s) can be searched for key words using the Firefly Search tool
- the Firefly page(s) can be edited easily
- text/graphics within the Firefly pages may be hyperlinked to other pages/resources/etc
- the page is available at the click of a link - you don't have to wait whilst Adobe Reader loads
Disadvantages
- transfer of complex PDF content is not always successful
- can be time consuming
Transfer Methods
It is difficult to give hard and fast rules about the best ways to do this - it's as much an art as a science - but some possible ways forward are given below:
Simple text/graphics transfer
Open the pdf within Adobe Reader and choose the Select Text tool . Select the text to be copied and then copy and paste it into the Firefly page. Continuous text will not text wrap as the original fixed line lengths of the PDF version will be preserved. You can edit these line breaks out in Firefly or, if the amount of text is great, it might be easier to transfer the text into Word and use Search and Replace to do the editing instead.
To transfer images, choose the Select Image tool instead and copy the graphic to the clipboard. Paste the graphic into an image editing program (e.g. Microsoft Office Picture Editor or PaintShop Pro) and save it as either a .gif file (best for diagrams) or a .jpg file (best for photographs) into an appropriate folder in the Firefly Resources area in the usual way. From there it can be inserted into the Firefly page.
Larger PDF documents
These are better transferred with the help of a third party converter, the best being Adobe Acrobat, from PDF to HTML. Various cheaper options exist which can do this, e.g. Drake, and they often produce reasonable results.
Alternatively, if the original document is available on the internet, you can use Google to make the change for you. You first need to find the internet copy and locate its URL in your browser's address bar. Then paste the URL into the Google's search box, press Enter and the option to view an HTML version of the original PDF document should appear. If this contains no graphics, then it may be copied and pasted straight into Firefly; if it does contain graphics, choose File > Save As > Web Page, Complete within Internet Explorer. Then save it to Firefly's Resources area from where it may be imported into Firefly using Import/Export from the Tools menu.
In both cases above, you may wish to reformat the content to avoid displaying fixed line lengths and allow text wrapping. As above, this is best achieved by using Word's Search and Replace tools before finally copying into Firefly.
