If you have questions after reading this guide, please contact Dan Tracy (dtracy@illinois.edu), head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing.

If you are considering starting a journal or digital publication, the Illinois Open Publishing Network is here to help with consultations on digital publishing, open access, scholarly communication, and copyright.

To add pages, click on the Exhibit tab in My Dashboard OR click the number above "exhibits" on the dashboard to access your created exhibits. Then click Edit for the exhibit in which you want to add pages.  

At the bottom of the Edit Exhibit metadata page, your created pages will be listed under Pages. To add a page, click on the green Add Page button at the bottom of the box:

In the Add Page section, you must enter the page metadata and select a layout. The page metadata is similar to the exhibit and section metadata: The Page Title is the title of the page. The Page Slug is the identifier for the page at the end of the URL.

Click on the green "Save Changes" button to create the page.

The "Content" section of the page editor is where you can create and edit content blocks.  You can create a new block by selecting a layout and clicking the green "Add New Content Block" button. Omeka offers a variety of layouts, but the basic options are File with Text, Gallery, and just Text. Adding new plugins may allow you to access additional layouts.

Each page that you create may contain multiple content blocks.  Throughout the process of adding blocks and content, you can click and drag Items and blocks to change their order.

To attach an image, click on the "Attach an Item" button to select from your uploaded Items. Click on the Item you want to insert, and then click on the gray Attach Selected Item button:

Note that if you have a large amount of Items, you can click on "Show Search Form" to search through your Items. After you have inserted an Item, type the accompanying text in the text box underneath it.

You can either click Save and Return to Section if you're finished or want to work on another section; or click on Save and Add Another Page to keep on adding pages.  And with this page, you now have the beginnings of an exhibit!

To add a text-only block to your exhibit page, select the "Text" layout option and click the green "Add new content block" button.

This will take you to the basic text editor provided by Omeka, where you can add and format the text for your exhibit.  When you are finished adding text to the content block, remember to click the green "Save Changes" button.

When adding text to any content block you may use the basic text editor (shown above) or the HTML Source Editor, a more advanced option that will allow you to write and edit the code directly.  To open the HTML Source Editor, click "HTML" in the basic text editor.  When you are finished, click the "Update" button to save your changes.

After selecting the "File with Text" block layout, Omeka will take you to a page where you can add content in the form of Items, captions, and text.  To add an Item, simply click the "+ Add Item" box. You can also use the text editor below the item field to add text, such as written commentary about your exhibit.

Next you should see the "Attach an Item" window, where you can browse the Items that have been uploaded to your Omeka site. If you have a large quantity of Items available on your site, you may prefer to use the Search Form to locate the Item you are interested in adding to your exhibit. To access these search options, click the blue "Show Search Form" button.

This option allows you to search by keyword and/or to narrow your search by Dublin Core metadata, ID numbers, collection, exhibit, item type, tags, and user. To return to the browsable list, simply click the blue "Hide Search Form" button. 

Once you have located the Item you would like to add, select the item line and click the brown "Select Item" button.

This will take you to a page where you may supply a caption.  When you have completed this process, simply click the green "Apply" button to finish adding the item to your exhibit.

Click the arrow next to "Layout Options" to expand the list of formatting options. This will allow you to select the File position, File size, and Caption position for the content block. 

The layout options are as follows:

File position: Left or Right

File size: Fullsize, Thumbnail, or Square Thumbnail

Caption position: Center, Left, or Right

As you add content and make changes to a page, remember to save your work by clicking the green "Save Changes" button.