Google Sites FAQ

Google Sites for ePortfolios FAQ

*Note* This FAQ is a work-in-progress. If you cannot find your answer here, or elsewhere in the ePortfolio tutorial pages, email us for help at it@uwb.edu, call us at 425.352.3456 or visit the IT Help Desk in LB2-218.

 

 

 

1. Adding an “outside” URL to the navigation?

To add an outside URL to the navigation menu, you must learn to edit the sidebar. If you have never edited the sidebar in Google Sites, check out this video first:
http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/editing-sidebar-google-sites

Specifically, to add a URL to a domain outside of your Google Site, you must:

1. Click “Edit Sidebar” under the Google Sites sidebar
2. In the “Sidebar” box, click “Edit” under “Navigation.”
3. Next, uncheck the box “Automatically organize my navigation”
4. NOTE: after you uncheck this box, you will have to manually add every new page you create. Watch the video linked above for more information.
5. Now, click “Add URL” and type in the “Text to display” in the navigation and the URL where you want the link to take the user.
6. Make sure to save your changes.

2. Deleting a page?

To delete a page, you must:

• Navigate to that page by clicking on the page title in the navigation menu.
• Once you are on the page, click “More” and then “Delete Page.”
• Confirm the deletion, and you are done.

3. Scanning paper documents?

There is a scanner located next to the IT Help Desk. There, you can ask for help on scanning from someone at the desk. The IT Help Desk is located on the second floor of the Campus Library across the north sky bridge.

There are also two scanners in the Open Lab (UW2-140) and there are scanners in the Campus Library. All of these scanners can scan documents up to 8 ½ X 11 inches.

If you use the scanners in the Open Lab, contact the IT Help Desk for help by going to the phone in the Open Lab and dialing 2-3456.

If you use the scanners in the Campus Library, speak with someone at the adjacent Information Commons desk.

4. Embedding audio?

To view the video tutorial on embedding audio, please visit the Learning Technologies page on Embedding Audio into an ePortfolio:

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/embedding-audio-in-google-sites

5. Embedding video?

Use your UW Google Docs to host your video and embed it in your Google Site ePortfolio:

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/uploading-and-embedding-google-docs-video

6. Moving pages?

To move a page:

1. Navigate to that page by clicking on its title in the navigation menu
2. Then, click More in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click Move Page.
4. The window that opens is a site map. You must select the page under which you want the page you are moving to go. For example, in the case of the CUSP ePortfolio, if you want to move an “Artifact” page under the “First Year Reflection” page, you must select the First Year Reflection page in the site map and click “Move.”

7. Inserting a link?

To insert a link in your page, you must be in the “editing mode” for that page. To do this, navigate to the page that you want to edit and then click “Edit Page” in the top right corner of the screen.

To create a link, you must have a piece of text or an image to form the link.

For text:

1. Click "Edit page"
2. Find the text that you want to become the link and highlight that text. (You can highlight text by holding down a left click and then dragging.)
3. Next, click the “Link” button in the editing bar on the upper half of the screen.
4. To link to a Web page in your site, make sure “Existing Page” is selected and choose the page on your site to which you want to link.
5. To link to a Web page outside of your Google Site, make sure “Web address” is selected and type (or copy and paste) the URL for the page to which you want to link.

For an image:

1. Click "Edit Page"
2. Embed the image on the page (click here to learn how to embed an image)
3. You must click on the image while in editing mode, which brings up the editing options for that image.
4. To change the URL, click “Change” and type (or cut and paste) the URL for the Web page to which you want your image to link.

8. Linking to text in the middle of a page? or Creating an HTML Anchor?

In order to link to text in the middle of a Web page, you must create (or "drop") an “anchor” in the HTML of the page. The HTML anchor is placed next to the text that you want to link to in the middle of the page, and it generates its own URL. Here’s how:

1. Navigate to the page where you want to drop an anchor and click "Edit Page."
   
2. Click "HTML" on the formatting menu.
3. In your page's HTML, you'll need to find the text in the middle of the page where you want the user to arrive as the destination of your link. Next, you'll need to type in (or copy and paste) exactly as you see here, including the spaces, the following HTML code: <a name="AnchorName" /> (NOTE: There is a space between "a" and "name" as well as a space after the last quotation mark, just before the forward slash.)
4. In this example, you'll want to replace AnchorName with a name that reflects this link's destination.
5. Click "Update" to return to your page, then click "Save" to preserve your changes to the page.
6. Note: the anchor URL is the full URL of the page on which the anchor was dropped, and then add on a "#" (pound) sign followed by the AnchorName you gave with no spaces.
7. Now, navigate to the page where you want to place the link and click "Edit page".
8. Highlight the text you want to turn into the link to your anchor and click Link.
9. Select the Web address tab and enter the full URL of your new anchor link in the box below "Link to this URL". As stated earlier, the URL for your anchor will look like this: http://sites.google.com/a/uw.edu/YourSite/Page#AnchorName, where YourSite is the name of your site, Page is the page that contains the destination of your link, and AnchorName is the name you used to mark the destination of your anchor link.
10. Click "OK."
11. Continue editing your page or click "Save" to preserve your changes.

9. Attaching Documents?

(For answer with screen capture images, go to: http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=90563)
“You can attach files within the Attachments section at the bottom of any page or within a File Cabinet-type page. To attach a document to a standard page, click Browse next to Attach a file, browse for the file, select it, and click Open.

To attach documents to a File Cabinet, create a new page using the File Cabinet type and upload your files there using folders as desired to organize the contents.

10. Organizing/Renaming Attached Documents?

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/managing-attached-docs

 

11. Deleting an entire Google Site?

To delete one of your Google Sites, you must:

1. Go to the Google Site that you want to delete.
2. Make sure you have removed and stored, or transferred, all the contents of the site that you want to keep.
3. Click ":More" and then "Manage Site" in the drop down menu
4. Click "General" in the left hand navigation
5. On the "General" page, scroll to the bottom the page and you’ll see a link that says "Delete This Site."
6. When you click it, Google will ask you if you really want to delete the site and they will tell you that it is irreversible.
7. Click Okay, if you are okay with that.

12. Adding/removing the Comments function to/from a page?

Check out answer #20 (click here)

13. Basics of creating and editing a site?

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/eportfolios/student-tutorial

14. Using Google Docs in my Google Site?

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/googledocs-integration

15. Customizing site colors and themes?

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/customize-themes

16. Editing the sidebar?

http://www.bothell.washington.edu/learningtech/help/how-to/eportfolios/advanced-eportfolio/editing-sidebar-google-sites

17. Displaying PDFs on my Google Sites webpages?

Although you can display Google Documents in your Google Site relatively easily, Google doesn't allow you to easily embed PDF files that you've uploaded into Google Docs. If you try to use the "Insert --> Document" method for a PDF that you've uploaded to Google Docs, it will say something like "The URL is not supported."

In order to display a PDF on a Google Site webpage, we recommend using a third-party service called www.scribd.com. In order to use Scribd.com, you must:

1. Sign up for a free account.
2. Then, you can upload PDFs (note: you can keep the PDF private by selecting the check box before uploading the document).,
3. Then, after the document has been uploaded, click the "Embed" button under the "Share and Embed" heading on the right hand side of the page.
4. Under the "Embed this document" heading click the "Copy" button to copy the embed code.
5. Then, follow the embedding instructions found in this video (you can also just read the transcript underneath the video).

18. Why can't I see subpages in my Google Site navigation?

In order to make sure that all of your subpages show up in the navigation menu, you must:

1. Go to your Google Site
2. Click "More" in the top right and then "Manage Site"
3. Click "Site Layout" in the left menu under Site Appearance
4. Click "Edit" under the Navigation heading
5. Where it reads "Level of Pages to Show," select All, so that all levels of your Google Site pages will show in the navigation.
6. Then click Okay
7. Click "Save Changes"
8. Now, return to your site to make sure you are now able to see all levels of pages.

19. Ordering attachments on a Google Sites web page?

The best way to manage attachments, including ordering attachments on a given web page, is to go to the Attachments page in the site managment section. To do this:

1. Go to your Google Site, click in the top right corner "More" and
2. Then click "Manage Site."
3. Click "Attachments" in the left navigation menu
4. On this page, you can manage all of the attachments on all of the pages in your Google Site.
5. In this case, we want to order pages on a single web page.
6. To do this, you must rename the documents on a given page by putting them in alphanumerical order, starting with the number 1 through the number 9 followed by the letter A through the letter Z. Note: if you try to use the number "10," Google Sites will treat it as though it is a number 1 followed by a number 0, not the number 10.
7. So, you rename each document on a given page by checking the box next to the document and clicking "Rename" near the top of the page.
8. Then, type the number 1 with a period (e.g. "1.") in front of the name of the document.
9. Finally, click "Rename"
10. Now, rename the other files that are housed on that page, starting with the number 2 and continuing through the number 9 and then continuing with the letter A through the letter Z.
11. Remember: this is only for documents on a given page. If you order attachments on a different web page, you can start over with the number 1.

20. Adding/Removing the Comments and Attachments functions at the bottom of the page?

To add/remove the Comments and Attachments functions on a given page, you must make sure that these functions are enabled/disabled for that page. To do this:

1. Go to the page where you want to add/remove one or both of these functions.
2. From the page, click "More" in the top right of the screen.
3. Now, select "Page Settings."
4. In the small window that pops up, check/uncheck the boxes next to "Allow Attachments" and/or "Allow Comments," depending on what you prefer.
5. Notice that you can also decide whether to display the title of the page and whether you want subpages of the current page to show up as links at the bottom of the page.
6. Finally, click Save.
7. Unfortunately, you must do this individually for each page. There is not a tool to "globally" manage all of the pages of your site at once.

21. Adding/Removing links to subpages at the bottom of a page?

To add/remove the links to subpages of a given page, you must make sure that this function is enabled/disabled for that page. To do this:

1. Go to the page where you want to add/remove subpage links.
2. From the page, click "More" in the top right of the screen.
3. Now, select "Page Settings."
4. In the small window that pops up, check or uncheck the box next to "Show links to sub-pages," depending on whether or not you want to display them.
5. Finally, click Save.
6. Unfortunately, you must do this individually for each page. There is not a tool to "globally" manage all of the pages of your site at once.

 22. Naming Conventions?

Depending on whether you are creating an ePortfolio for CUSP or IAS, the naming convention will be different.

• CUSP Students: CUSP Portfolio Lastname, Firstname
  
• IAS Students: IAS Portfolio Lastname, Firstname

23. Changing the name of your site?

To change the name of your site, click on the More button at the top right corner of the page. Select Manage Site from the drop down menu. You can change your site name on this page.