Media

The Media Library holds every photo and file you have uploaded. Upload a photo once, then use it on as many pages as you like.

Go to Content, then Media.

Newest first. Sixteen files here.

1. Upload to Library. Adds files from your computer.

2. Search by filename. Type part of a file name to find it.

3. All types. Narrows the grid to one kind of file, such as images only.

The two small buttons on the right switch between the grid you see here and a plain list.

Uploading

1. Click Upload to Library.
2. Find the files on your computer.
3. Pick one, or hold Cmd on a Mac or Ctrl on Windows and pick several.
4. Click Open.

The new files appear at the front of the grid. Big files take a little while, so give it a moment before you go looking.

The Upload Media button on the Dashboard is a shortcut. It brings you to this screen, where you still click Upload to Library.

You can upload photos, video, sound files, PDFs, and Word and Excel files. Try something else and a red Upload failed appears next to the button. Nothing is added, and you can try again with another file.

Tip

Photos straight off a phone are fine. Your website makes its own smaller copies of your photos before showing them to a visitor, so a big photo does not slow your pages down. It only makes the upload itself slower.

Send us a photo that is too small, though, and nothing can fix it. It will look soft and blurry on a wide screen. Bigger is the safer mistake.

Using a photo on a page

Photo fields all work the same way, whether you are filling in a block or an album. The field says Select image or Select media. Click it.

Your whole library, in the picker.

1. Search by filename. Same search as the Media screen.

2. Upload. Adds a new file without leaving this box.

3. Selected. Click a photo and a blue check mark appears on it. Its name shows down here, so you can check you got the right one.

4. Insert. Puts that photo in the field and closes the box.

Then save, and click Publish.

Swapping one photo for another

Once a field has a photo, the button under it reads Change.

1. Click Change.
2. Pick the new photo.
3. Click Insert.
4. Click Publish.

Until you publish, visitors keep seeing the old photo.

Alt text

Alt text is a short line that describes a picture in words.

It is read out to people who cannot see the picture, and it shows in place of the photo if the picture ever fails to load. Search engines read it too.

To write it, click the file in the Media Library.

Media Details, with the size, the width and height, and the date it went up.

1. Alt Text. The description. Type it here, then click Save.

2. Caption. Optional, and you can leave it empty. Photo albums have their own caption box, on the photo itself, and that is the one your Gallery page uses.

3. Delete. Read the warning further down before you use this.

4. Save. Stores your text.

Good alt text says what is in the picture, in a few plain words:

• Good: A new white kitchen with a wooden worktop.

• Not so good: IMG_4471.

• Good: Two of our installers carrying a bathtub up a backyard path.

• Not so good: Photo of our work, best plumbers, bathroom fitting.

Keep it under about fifteen words. No need to start with “a photo of”.

Important

Write the alt text when you upload, before you put the photo on a page.

The description is copied onto the page at the moment you pick the photo. Come back and change the alt text later and the pages that already use that photo keep the old wording. To bring them up to date, open the page, click Change, pick the same photo again, and publish.

In a photo album, the Caption you type beside the photo is used as the description if the file has no alt text of its own. Gallery covers albums.

Deleting a file

Warning

Deleting is final, and the panel does not check where the file is used first.

If a page is showing that photo, the page keeps pointing at a file that is no longer there. Visitors get a broken picture. You will not get a warning, and the Trash cannot bring the file back.

Before you delete, click Live View on any page you think uses it, and look. If in doubt, leave the file where it is. An unused file costs you nothing.

1. Click the file in the grid.
2. Click Delete, at the bottom left of the box.
3. A message asks Delete Media? and says it cannot be undone.
4. Click Delete again to confirm.

The file goes from the grid right away.

Folders

The Media screen itself has no folders. Every file sits in one long grid, newest first, and you find things with the search box.

Some sites have a Media Folders screen under Plugins that adds folders on top of that. Media Folders explains it. If it is not in your menu, your site does not use it.