FAQs - Expert Agent Documentation

NAVIGATION

Why should I create an HTML Header?

By creating an HTML header, and using it in the way it was designed, you are saving yourself and your team a lot of time and hassle. Especially if you ever decide to re-brand or simple change your logo.

What is wrong with uploading the header into the email?

The issue with the way the majority of agents add the header and logo is that if it ever needs to be changed, you will need to go throguh all your current templates, and any you create in the future, and manually change the logo and other details. This can be quite a job when you have a few hundred templates.

So how should I be doing it?

By following the instructions below, you will be able to add the same header with a quick three clicks. It will also mean that if you ever need to change anything in the header, you only need to change one template, and it will update across all of your templates that the header is attached to.

1. Go To Tools -> Configuration -> Output Configuration -> Templates

2. Click the + symbol at the bottom to create a new template

3. Select the template format of HTML (1), name your template clearly (2) and change the type to General (3).

4. Click Next, then on the next screen, click "Edit Content"

5. Then click the Image Manager icon as indicated below:

6. Then click the Upload option (1), select your logo from your computer (2), then click the upload button (3) to upload the image to Expert Agent.

7. If you are only adding a logo to your header, please skip to section 9 of this guide.

Once your logo has been uploaded into the system, close the image manager using the X at the top right, or the cancel button at the bottom left. You then need to add a table by clicking on the table icon (1) and in this instance we are using two cells (2) in the table so we have room for the logo and one for the company details. You can use as many as you need.

8. Drag your table to the correct approximate size you want. It will automatically split the table equally. If you don't want it to be equal, right click in the table and select "Cell Properties". From this screen, you can select which cell you want to control, and enter what percentage of the total width you want each cell to be. Remember to add the percentage sign, all cells must equal 100% when added together. This can be adjusted at a later time.

9. Once you have okayed back to the template, click inside the table where you want your logo to show, and click on the image manager icon from before. Then select your logo (1) and click Insert (2).

10. If you are only using a logo, please skip to section 11

Your logo should have loaded into the side of the table you previously selected. You may need to grab a corner/side of it and resize it so that it's the correct dimensions. Once you have the logo in the right position, click into the next table for you address and add the merge codes for the information you want to be displayed.

11. You now have the basic header template that you can come back and make adjustments to at a later date. Click save and close, and then click the save icon, so you are looking at the "Edit Templates" screen.

12. The following step can be repeated to add your new header to any HTML/Email templates. The most productive way is to inform your colleagues of the method, so that whenever they use a template, they make sure they have added the header to it. Which means you don't have to do them all at once.

13. Select an HTML template, and click the "edit" button in the left column. You will then see a couple of dropdowns in the top right of the window. Use the drop down "header" field (1) to select your new header (2). This can also be done for footers in the same way you have done for a header. Once you have selected it, you can click the preview button to see how it will look, or just the save button (3).

This exact same method can be used to create footers as well. By using this method, if you ever need to make changes, all you need to do it edit you header template, and it will change on every email it is attached to.

1. Open TextEdit on your Mac

2. Highlight TextEdit in the Menu Bar and open "Preferences"

3. Make sure the New Document tab is selected. Change the button so that "Plain Text" is selected

4. Open a new document in TextEdit

5. If the above actions are correct this should open a new window with no options to style the text as below:

6. Add your data into the document and save.

7. Find the document you have just saved -> Right Click -> Get Info

8. Open the Name & Extension drop down menu. Change the .txt to .csv

9. Then click use .csv

10. This will change the document to a CSV file which you can then open with Numbers.

Why would I convert from HTML to Wordlink?

HTML is extremely unforgiving. If you get one symbol or character out of place it can cause major issues and is very hard to identify what is causing the issue. Event experts in HTML have to spend time pouring over the code to identify one out of place or missing character.

Wordlink is simple compared to HTML. It's basically the same as editing a Word document (please see Microsoft Word tips if you need any help using Microsoft Word, although Microsoft forums are usually the best place to start).

Additionally, each time you edit an HTML template, it leaves excess code in the background which will eventually start to cause issues.

What is the difference?

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is what web pages are built on. It was the only option at the beginning of Expert Agent to allow the pulling of information from Expert Agent into Templates, but now technology has moved forward, Word can now work in the same way using similar merge codes to pull information into the documents.

So will all my templates work in Word after converting them?

Sadly, the answer is no. Reports still need to be done in HTML, as do e-mails. The reason for this is that they work in a different way.

How do I convert my HTML Templates into Wordlink?

Firstly, it must be noted that we strongly recommend starting from scratch and NOT using the method shown below as you will almost always achieve better results starting from scratch.

1. Open your HTML template (from Tools -> Configuration -> Output Config -> Templates). Find your template in the list and click the "Edit" button next to it. Then click the "Edit Content" button.

2. Make sure you are in the Design Tab (1).

3. Copy the entire area and paste into a blank word document.

4. You then need to change the brackets of the Merge Codes. HTML uses [ and ] whereas Wordlink using { and }. There is an easy way to do this.

5. Click Find and Replace (use CTRL+F on your Keyboard and click into the Replace option)

6. In the top "Find box" put the [ symbol

7. In the bottom "Replace" box put a {

8. Then click Replace All

9. You will then need to do steps 5 - 8 using ] and } instead.

The template is now editable within Word, and most of the merge codes will work. However, there will be some that don't due to the wording being slightly different. The easiest way to identify these is to upload the template and try to using it.

The Merge Code that are still showing will need to be highlighted and replaced using the merge codes for Word. (Editing letters using EA data)

There is not a perfect way, but it does get the bulk of the HTML templates over to Word and save a little time.

REMEMBER this is only a quick guide to try and help you save time. They will not be final copied and you will still need to edit them to a degree to make them fully usable.

Why are my HTML Templates no longer displaying correctly?

Different browsers are supposed to work in the same way, however, it has come to light that they actually handle things differently. Chrome reads and displays HTML templates differently to Internet Explorer.

It worked fine in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer enabled used to use templates that were bigger than the required size by having it use the "shrink to fit" function. Chrome does not have this function. Some printer drivers do, however, this is something you would need to investigate.

Is there a fix?

There is a sort of fix that we suggest doing/ In most cases it prevents the need to re-make all of your Templates. If this does not fix the issue, you may need to recreate your Templates.

How do I change my margins?

The following guide should help you adjust the margins so that your templates don't have to be re-made.

1. When in the "Select Template" page, click "Edit" to edit the required template.

2. As you can see in the image below, our Top, Bottom, Left and Right margins are set to 20mm.

3. The best place to start is to half them, in this case we would change ALL these margins to 10mm.

4. Then click "Preview" to what difference has been made.

5. You may find that you need to raise or lower the number to achieve your desired results.

It should also be noted that these numbers do NOT need to be the same.

You will need to do this with each template before you use it, but once you have changed the margins this way and pressed "Save", it will be a permanent change to that template. However, if you need to use a different template, you will need to adjust it and save it before using.

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How do I create an HTML Header?

How do I save a CSV file on a Mac?

How do I convert HTML Templates to Word Templates?

How do I change the margins on an HTML Template?