If you selected create content and chose "story" or "article" as a content type, you should now be looking at a form with the title "Create Story" or "Create Article". From here, it is just a matter of filling in the form and posting it.
Enter the title of the story or article. Be descriptive and catchy, but keep it brief.
The "body" field is where you put the main content of the page. If you've typed this into a word processor or HTML editor, just copy and paste it into this field. Alternately you can just type straight in. For the most basic page, just type and leave a blank line (i.e., hit "enter" twice) at the and of each paragraph.
You can optionally format your entry in friendly old HTML. But hey, if you're a novice, don't worry--it's not as difficult as it sounds. Here's a quick primer:
If you want something to be bold, just enclose it in
<strong>tags, like this:
<b>This text is bold</b>
<strong>This text is bold</strong>
Note that there is always an opening tag (no forward slash) and a closing tag (a forward slash before the tag name, indicating that you are "turning it off").
To make something italic, put it in
<i>This is in italics</i>
<em>This is emphasized</em>
There is considerable debate about the semantic nature of the
<b></code and <code><i>tags versus the
To put things nicely in paragraphs, enclose them in
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
To make a bulleted list, first open a list with a
<ul>tag (that stands for "unordered list"), then put each list item in
<li>(yes, for "list item") tags. Don't forget at the end to close off your list with a closing
</ul>tag. Here's how it looks:
<li>This is the first bulleted item</li>
<li>This is the second bulleted item</li>
The result is displayed below:
- This is the first bulleted item
- This is the second bulleted item
To add a link to you need to use the
To add links to other pages within your Drupal site you do not need to add the full URL, you can simply refer to the node like so:
<a href="/?q=node/1222">My node</a>
Note the "/" at the beginning. Also the above example is using non-clean URLs. If your site has clean URLs enabled you can remove the ?q= so that you just have
<a href="/node/1222">My node</a>.
That wasn't too painful, was it?
Decide where you want the "teaser" (the part of the main text used in links to the article) to end. If you do nothing, Drupal will choose a breaking point for you -- but it's better to decide yourself, to make sure the breaking point is appropriate. You do this by typing in a <!--break--> where the teaser is to end. (Your default break point is controlled by Post Settings, found in 4.7 at administer > settings > posts and in 5 at administer > content management > post settings.)
- Administrative options
At the top of the form you may see some administrative options. For example, there is a box with the heading User comments. Drupal supports discussion/comments on postings--but such comments are not always appropriate. If your article is one that could be usefully commented on, keep the default settings: "Read/write". Otherwise, choose "Disabled".
- Topic: (may not be visible if you do not have categories defined)
Next comes the "Topic" menu. This is the section your article will go in--or in the technical language of Drupal, its ("taxonomy categories"). This list presents all the sections available on the website, with their structure. So, choose the appropriate section or sections for your story and continue down the form to supply the body of your text.
And you're set! You can preview the page you've prepared by hitting "Preview" (recommended, and sometimes required) or you can bravely or recklessly just go ahead and publish it by hitting "Submit".