Creating an Article


Articles are the building blocks of newsletters, social media posts, email updates and websites in Hail. Creating articles is easy with Hail's streamlined workflow and formatting options.

  1. Head to the Articles section. You’ll always find it in the main menu on the left-hand side in Hail. Here you’re presented with the Article Browser which defaults to listing your created articles, with the latest at the top and oldest at the bottom.
  2. Simply click on ‘+ Create new article’ at the top.
  3. You’ll find yourself on a blank Draft article and all you need to do is start filling it in. 

  4. The first section will allow you to select your article's feature image. You can select an image or video that has already been uploaded into Hail, or add a new image or video directly into the article. 
  5. Under Select Existing Image/Video is the first empty text block for the article’s Headline. As indicated by the large placeholder text the headline is ’used to quickly and briefly draw attention to the article’. Simply click into this section and begin typing. For example: Get Ready for the Outdoor Retreat, then click the Save button.
  6. Next click into and type your article’s Lead. This is the article's first, or leading, sentence. As explained in the placeholder: an effective lead is a brief, sharp statement of the article's essential facts and is ideally 20–25 words in length. For example: Read all about next week’s retreat and what you should be bringing with you.
  7. To add a main ‘hero’ image or video at the top of your article you simply need to click on the placeholder ‘Select Existing’ above your headline and you’ll be presented with two icons: one to add an image and one to add a video. Click on the left-hand image icon to open the image browser where you can select your image and add it with the green ‘Update selection’ button.
  8. The main section of your story should be added to the Body section. For the above retreat example this is where you’d add all the details such as: leaving and returning dates, emergency contacts, wet weather/postponement arrangements and the list of items for students to pack. In the Body section you can format the text with bold, italics, links, headers, quotes and lists by simply highlighting the text you wish to format and clicking on the green buttons that appear.
  9. Great! Now your information has been correctly entered into the three text sections: Headline, Lead and Body. Getting used to dividing your text into these sections will make all the difference later and means your article is correctly formatted for all future uses and will display beautifully wherever it’s published.
  10. Adding images and videos inline is as easy as you'd wish for: Simply create a new line within the Body section of Hail's editor and you'll see a little + button appear. Click that button and choose from image or video to open the media browser. Select which media you'd like to embed inline and voilà!
  11. Photo and Video Gallery. Add photos or videos to the gallery, these will appear at the bottom of an article and are useful for when you have a lot of images from an event etc.

  12. You can also upload and attach documents to articles, which will be displayed at the bottom of your text and above any photo galleries on all published outputs. The following file types are accepted: Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDFs and MP3s.

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